The Islands of Unwisdom Read online

  Day succeeded day, and we sailed on with only the wide horizon to gaze upon. I came to know every knot-hole in the walls of the Chart-room, every wild tale in the Purser’s and the Boatswain’s repertory, and could prophesy with exactness what dishes would be served on any given day. Next to me at the common table sat Juan de la Isla’s daughter Maruja, who resembled her mother, a fat woman wholly given to gossip and gluttony, as a calf the cow. The Colonel’s nephew was for ever paying Maruja far-fetched compliments, which were received by her with giggling laughter, and she regarded herself as already betrothed to him; but the mother insisted that she was as yet too young to think of marriage. On my other hand sat the merchant Mariano de Castillo, whose only conversation concerned money and profits, and who was well-dipped in the fat of usury. He could tell you to a hair how much loss there was in a measure of wheat from the waste of its winnowing and cleansing; or, to a crumb, how much more loss in a hundred dozen loaves, when you cut them with a knife rather than broke them with your hand. He was for ever quarrelling with the Purser, whom he accused of sharp practice, and how Don Alvaro had persuaded him to put his money into so wild a venture, I have never made out.

  The pages were our time-keepers. They watched and turned the hour-glasses in the niche of the binnacle and at each turn sang out:

  ‘A good hour running,

  A better hour coming;

  The first now stilled

  The second a-humming,

  God knows how many good hours remain;

  Turn them, count them, turn them again!

  ‘Hey, you there in the bows! Are you awake? Are you watching?’

  Dawn came with their shrill chant of salutation, like the sound of birds in the mating season:

  ‘Glory to the dawn so red

  And the Cross whereon Christ bled,

  Glory to the Trinity,

  Very God in Unity,

  Glory to each Christian heart

  Of God’s love that claims a part.

  Glory to this coming day,

  God has rolled the dark away!’

  Then they would gabble a Paternoster and Ave Maria, and sing out:

  ‘Amen! God give us many such good days. Listen, General, pray listen, your ladyship, listen Colonel, listen Master, and all noble lords and dames: we wish you a fine and prosperous voyage! Sail on, sail on cheerily! Now then, gentlemen of the aftercastle, and gentlemen of the forecastle, good-day to you all, in God’s name!’

  at which we would rise to hear matins. When dinner time came round, and the pages had laid the tables and brought the dishes from the cook-room, they would cry:

  ‘To table, to table! General, General’s Lady, Colonel, Master and all other noble lords and dames—listen! The table is spread, the food is served, and the water is drawn for your Excellencies!

  ‘Long life, long life to the King of Castile!

  On land and on water, our hearts shall be leal.

  An axe or a rope, now, for all the King’s foes,

  (Amen, cry amen, or you shan’t wet your nose!)

  The table is laden, that soon will be bare:

  Who comes not to table must forfeit his share.’

  And at dusk, one of them would light the binnacle lamp and they would all sing the responses to his lead:

  ‘Hail to the hour: of our dear Saviour’s birth

  Hail to Our Lady: who bore Him on earth

  Hail to Saint John: who baptized Him one day

  The watch has been warned: and the sand slips away

  God grant us good sailing: and so we all pray!’

  They turned out the watches with:

  ‘To quarters, to quarters, fine gentlemen of the new watch, to quarters, to quarters! High time now to show a leg, so be brisk! Up, up, gentlemen of the new watch! To quarters!’

  We kept three watches: the Master’s, the Boatswain’s and the Pilot’s. Since the Chief Pilot was also the master of the San Geronimo and had no assistant, this third watch was commanded by Damian of Valencia, the Boatswain’s mate, an excitable man who regarded soldiers as idle vermin, cumberers of the earth, and sailoring as the only honest profession.

  Every day at noon we hailed the other ships for an exchange of news and observations; every Sunday we hove-to for a couple of hours and, while the Chaplain went aboard the frigate and the Vicar aboard the galeot to celebrate mass and hear confession, the pilots and high officers exchanged visits. On the third Sunday out, an officer from the Santa Ysabel foolishly hinted to Don Diego that the Admiral was lying with the sergeant’s wife, and he, much incensed, took the tale straight to the General. A grand commotion ensued in the Great Cabin, with many bitter words cast about, some of which I could not help but overhear. Doña Mariana made ready to board the Santa Ysabel at once, to fling her rival over the rails and regain possession of her husband; but her sister held that Don Lope’s adultery was an affront which no woman of spirit should tamely accept, and that the Admiral must come to her, not she to him. All that week they talked the matter over, growing hotter every day, and on the next Sunday Don Lorenzo and Don Diego went to the Admiral and informed him that if he hoped to enjoy his wife when the Isles were reached, he should send his concubine to another ship and beg forgiveness on his knees of the whole family. This he refused to do, bluntly saying that ever since his beard sprouted he had not spent a week without a bed-fellow; that it was too late now to learn continence; and that his knees were far too stiff to bend to anyone but the King of Castile. Let his wife come freely to him, he said, and he would love and cherish her, and the woman could be her maid.

  Don Lorenzo’s answer, made in some heat, was that the Admiral could not have fully considered into what family he had married. To which Don Lope returned that, in accordance with the agreement signed by the General, he expected his wife to join him at the first island on which they landed; and that he would accept no fresh conditions imposed on their union either by her family or by any third party.

  Don Diego then caught sight of the sergeant’s wife, hiding behind the bed curtains, and asked her: ‘Have you no shame, harlot, to desert your maimed husband and endanger your soul by adultery?’

  ‘My lord,’ she answered demurely, ‘it is better to be well loved than ill wed; and I do no more than keep the Admiral’s bed warmed for your honour’s sister.’

  They went away in a huff, without farewell, and on the following Sunday no visits were exchanged between the two galleons.

  We had now reached fourteen degrees of latitude, still on a W.S.W. course, having run about five hundred leagues; but on Midsummer Day we changed course to W.N.W. because the winds had shifted, and gradually approached the ninth parallel, when our daily runs increased by five leagues. On the 30th of June, the day of Saint Martial, Father Antonio went to the General and offered, with the Saint’s help, to cure his headache.

  ‘My headache?’ Don Alvaro asked in surprise.

  ‘I mean by that,’ he explained, ‘your painful concern for the young women in the ship, whose unchastity you have been unable to curb either by threats or admonitions.’

  ‘Why, Father, has a remedy been revealed to you from Heaven?’

  ‘There is only one, my son,’ said the Chaplain, ‘namely marriage, a state sanctified by Our Saviour Himself, when He attended the wedding at Cana. Give the women leave to marry, and I warrant that though they have not baulked at fornication, yet they will be wary of the greater sin of adultery; but delay permission a little longer, and Miguel Llano’s register of births will open with a fine blossoming of bastards. Few have the power to control their passions as you do, my son, and what young female is wise below the girdle? By expecting too much of your fellow-men, you have caused yourself unnecessary pain.’

  Don Alvaro gave way at last, but he shrank from making a speech in a matter that went so much against the grain. Instead, at his orders, a parchment was tied to the mainmast on which he announced that since it was better to marry than to burn, such lovers as could not practise continence unti
l the Isles were reached, should come to him and ask for his consent. He acted without Doña Ysabel’s knowledge, who was ill-pleased when she learned of the notice. She said to her sister with a short laugh: ‘Lovers indeed! It will be hard to decide who is in love with whom, when so many sluts are common to the whole ship’s company. Don Alvaro would have done better to use the stocks and whip, as I advised him.’

  According to Elvira, she then importuned the General to take off his friar’s habit and ask Father Juan to release him from his vow; but he would not be moved. I carry in my mind a clear picture of his coming into the Great Cabin one morning with Juanito in his arms: the youngest of our emigrants, not yet a year old, the seventh child of a settler from Truxillo, named Miguel Geronimo. Don Alvaro in his Franciscan cowl, the thick skirts of his habit tucked up for coolness, looked for all the world like Saint Christopher bearing the Infant Christ over the river, and the marvellous tenderness in his eyes, as he crooned a foolish little lullaby, struck pity in my heart. It was plain that his childlessness gnawed at him, and when I stole a glance at Doña Ysabel, who was busy at her tambour-work again, I was aware that she nursed a furious resentment against him on this very account. Her face was momentarily disfigured by hate and shame, yet all she said was: ‘As you love me, husband, take that filthy child back to his mother! He’s crawling with lice and will bepiss us all.’ The General sighed and meekly stole away.

  During the next three weeks we celebrated fifteen marriages, but there were still some women left who preferred to stay single for a while, now that they had fewer rivals in their trade and could quickly amass a good dowry. So July passed, with only a single disaster. It happened on the ninth, the Eve of Saint Christopher, that Miguel Llano who had eaten tainted fish was seized by a violent flux. Doña Ysabel complained the next morning that he spent too long a time in the ‘garden’ of the Great Cabin, and had kept the ladies waiting, so the General made him go forward to the harness-tables overhanging the bow, which the crew used. These are dangerous perches when the sea is rough, and though that day it was no more than choppy, Miguel was out of luck. He had not been squatting there long, when a clumsy helmsman brought the ship to the wind, she was taken aback, and he in his weakness was jolted overboard.

  This happened at a time when officers and crew were sitting down to their several dinners, and in the bustle his cries went unheard; presently the look-out at the cross-trees spied him struggling in the water, a cable’s length astern, and gave the alarm. A sailor dived to his rescue, while the ship’s company made a great noise with whatever came to hand, to keep off the sharks. Miguel sank once, and as he rose again, the bold rescuer grasped his collar and struck him between the eyes so that he should not struggle. At last they were both hauled aboard, amid cheers, but Miguel scarcely had any life left in him. The Boatswain lifted him by the heels to empty his lungs of water; the Purser tickled his throat with a feather to make him spew; Don Alvaro ordered a hot wine-broth to be poured down his gullet, and after that a cupful of olive oil, to keep the salt water from rotting his guts; and two sailors kneaded his chest and belly with oil. It was all to no avail: his lips paled and he was dying. The Chaplain came on deck, hurriedly confessed him and administered the Sacrament.

  That night we buried Miguel Llano at sea. I was appointed to succeed him as the flotilla’s registrar of births, marriages and deaths, and it was my sorrowful duty to open the death-ledger with his own name. He was a dry, quarrelsome man, who had not shown me much kindness; none the less, I prayed for his soul every night for a month or more, because I pitied his fate and had been the only one to gain from it.

  Chapter 8

  THE MARQUESAS ISLANDS

  Every day at noon the Chief Pilot took the sun to determine our latitude, keeping us on a due westerly course of ten degrees fifty minutes south. When the high officers grew a little impatient because no land had appeared on the sixtieth day after our departure from Paita, he told them that they should not read the General’s promises too close to the letter: we were now sailing more than three degrees south of the solitary Isle of Jesus, the only land that had been sighted on the former voyage before the Isles of Solomon were reached. He also reminded them that Don Alvaro had set out five months earlier in the year than we and thereby gained the benefit of fairer winds. We might have to spend many more weeks at sea; so far we had covered only eight hundred leagues of the fifteen hundred, and there was no saying whether we should sight even so much as a treeless rock before our arrival.

  Ten days later, I happened to be talking to the Boatswain by the mainmast, when Ensign Juan de Buitrago sauntered up and joined in our conversation. We were discussing the event of the day—on a long journey even trivialities take on a look of importance—namely, the case of the General’s negro Myn who, when climbing up to the half-deck, had been struck on the skull by a stone cannon-ball weighing nearly four pounds. The ball was not aimed at him, but had slipped from Don Diego’s grasp while he played at catch with Don Luis. Myn crashed back on the deck, but sprang up at once, grinning and shaking his ears, none the worse for the pounding. ‘What gentleman threw that walnut?’ he shouted, and went on his way, chuckling to himself.

  ‘Ay, Don Marcos,’ said the Ensign, ‘it is well known that negroes have thick skulls. But have you ever heard how remarkably ticklish they are? My grandfather Hermenegildo de Buitrago went with Balboa on the famous expedition to Darien, when the ocean across which we now sail was first sighted from the Peak of Pirri. In his droll manner he used to say to me: “Juan, my boy, if you ever have trouble with a blackamore, don’t crack him on the head with your stick; he’ll only laugh at you, roll his eyes and break wind. But tickle his hide with a feather and you’ll have him at your mercy. That negro Nuño, now…”

  ‘And off he’d launch into his story: “Balboa, you see, led us down from the peak, ragged and fever-ridden, through dense, thorny jungle; and when at last we came to the beach, he waded out, parted the water solemnly with his sword, and took possession of it in the King’s name. But that wasn’t enough, it seems. The priest who was with us insisted that the deed must be formally recorded, with the hour, the day, and the names of the witnesses entered, and full glory given to God. Balboa’s secretary sat down on the sand, a parchment scroll spread on his knees, unstoppered his ink-horn, trimmed his quill and began to write at the priest’s dictation. But his knees were thin and bony; soon he rose and said that he needed a table. ‘Come here, Nuño,’ says Balboa, ‘you’re a good Catholic and a loyal subject of the King, lend us your sweaty black back!’ So Nuño knelt down, his hands on the beach, and the secretary spread the parchment on his broad shoulders and started all over again. But, God in Heaven, the negro’s agony was a study for a sculptor: he was so ticklish that every stroke of the pen made the table pitch and toss like a cock-boat in a storm. ‘Quiet, man, keep quiet!’ said the priest severely. ‘This is the most solemn hour of our lives: we are now entering the portals of history. Stop giggling like a drunken bridesmaid, you rogue; keep quiet, while I dictate, or it will be the worse for you!’ The negro could not help himself: he wriggled like an eel in an oil jar and laughed like a hyaena. The secretary stood by with grave, melancholy face and pen poised, waiting for him to calm down. ‘History!’ cried Nuño, when he was able to speak. ‘Reverend Father, how that blessed word does tickle Nuño’s back!’ At this the good priest lost his temper and took a hefty kick at the negro’s buttocks; but the secretary, making a grab at the parchment, stumbled into him, and both went down. The solemnity of the occasion was ruined beyond repair. There, on the white Pacific strand, sprawled negro, secretary, priest, ink-horn and parchment—all upside-down.”’

  ‘Upside-down!’ cried the simple-minded Boatswain delightedly. ‘Upside-down, by the miraculous Virgin of Pilar! Ho! ho! ho!’

  An uneasy feeling came over me that at some time or other, in a dream perhaps, I had already lived through this situation. I looked about me in sudden apprehension and there, not five paces away, stood
the Colonel, very pale and resting heavily on his stick—his first appearance on deck for many days. It was only then that I remembered the tale of the Blind Girl of Panama, and understood why the Boatswain’s words had rung so familiarly in my ears. The Colonel, his old resentment awakened by so perfect a re-enactment of the earlier scene, half lifted his stick and seemed minded to bring it down on the Boatswain’s head, when a loud cry rang out from the topmast cross-trees: ‘Land! Land ho!’

  ‘How does it bear, man?’ shouted Don Marcos.

  ‘Two points on the starboard bow, your honour! An island, some ten leagues off!’

  In great excitement, and unaware of the danger which he had so narrowly avoided, the Boatswain scrambled up the rigging and soon confirmed the look-out’s discovery. The General was at once called away from his beads and ordered the flotilla to change course and make for the island. The look-out, amid cheers, went to the Great Cabin to receive his reward of three gold pesos and drain a goblet of the best wine.