Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star’d at the Pacific — and all his men Look’d at each other with a wild surmise — Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
—KEATS
Their sails filled; their sails big and white as the scudding clouds racing above them, the two caravels ran before the wind like thoroughbreds in full flight. The sea heaved around them and they, made for this, took each swell with grace and speed. The sea, turquoise now and muscular, tossing restlessly, seemed to help them along, carrying them sometimes on big waves as fast as the moving air, spray flying from their prows, swiftly toward their destination.
On board the ships, sailors revelled in the salt spray which would leap from the sea to lick at them affably. The sun peering out from the clouds would dry them with its glowing light and change the sea’s colours before it departed once more behind some big nimbus. Across the water shadows sped into the distance checkering the liquid expanse from grey to blue to aqua and sometimes a shimmering silver. Even the helmsmen, struggling to keep their course amid the ocean’s gigantic playfulness, laughed aloud from the joy of the day.
And at the prow of his ship, his preferred place at times such as this, Juan Ponce de Leon grasped the larboard rail and rode the waves as he would a warhorse. Beside him was his boatswain, Medel, the old sea dog who had been with him on other such voyages, on other such days. Medel needed no handhold. His thick legs rolled with the moving deck as though he were part of it. He was smiling.
“At this rate, your honour,” Medel said, voice booming, “we’ll see land by day’s end!”
“Indeed,” Juan Ponce responded. “But I wait to hear from Sotil of the northerly current. Until we’ve hit that we are not so close.”
“I’ve seen flotsam around us this morning. A good sign.”
“You’re right, Medel. I am too pessimistic.”
They gazed back along the caravel’s deck at the humming activity all down its length. The men on watch worked the fine art of sailing, deftly going about their business, responding to Sotil’s shouted orders almost before they were given. Sailors worked high up on the cross-beam of the topsail while others climbed the ratlines into the shrouds. Still others on deck clamped and held the step of the mast to its cap while more grasped the sheets, hauling and tallying sail. More men could be glimpsed clambering and chasing from one place to another through the rigging so they seemed like cats chasing through trees. The sailors sang their shanties giving rhythm to their work. Soldiers and colonists had come up on deck to avoid the grimmer conditions below: to enjoy the day, play a little dice, and feel the warm sun on their faces.
“We’ve shared many leagues together, Fernando,” Juan Ponce said, turning to the boatswain.
“Aye, that we have, your honour.”
“You’ve been a loyal friend, since the early days. You recall them?”
“I do, sir. Exciting days. Not like now. In them days every voyage seemed magical-like. You never knew what you’d come across.”
“As Balboa finding a new ocean,” Juan Ponce muttered bitterly.
“But ‘twas with you, sir, we found Florida. And after that you took us southwest. There was grumblings, your honour, especially when we come across no islands those many days till we landed. I remember a good many thought we’d hit on Cathay. We know better now.”
“It is a great disappointment of my life,” Juan Ponce said, sighing deeply, “not to have explored inland there, found that narrow neck as Balboa did, and crossed it.”
“No sense regretting the past, your honour,” Medel said, “for you know now Florida can be no island. I’ve heard tell of some magical water up that way. There’s stories, sir, among the natives ...”
“It will make a good colony,” Juan Ponce said, his voice hardening, cutting the boatswain’s conjecture off. “When we settle it, I’ll make sure you’re given good land, a place to retire. Now on with your work, boatswain, get us there quickly.”
“Aye sir,” Medel answered. Abruptly he moved into action, bellowing orders to the sailors aloft. He thought no more of rumours. He was not the kind of man to think deeply. Rather, he was a tool: efficient, hardened, capable. Juan Ponce de Leon valued him and valued more his simplicity, for though he had come close to the mark, he had not known it.
The tool must not comprehend the building.
And no one must suspect the secret water.
At the height of my powers, before Colon, the Carib and the anger of my son, when each endeavour brought fame and profit, I mounted a voyage of exploration. At the time there were rumours of great, rich lands to the west of the Indies; stories of enchanted islands and golden cities, of mermaids in obscure lagoons, and legends of a mystic water. The natives seemed to believe such stories enough to convince our men and so as they spread they attained a kind of veracity even among the most cynical of us.
I set off northwest. Columbus had explored to the south, followed by Velasquez and a host of others, and found good lands but little gold. It was the lack of that precious metal, promised to the Crown and unrealized by Columbus, which disappointed Spain and got him into such trouble.
I determined another way.
I have never had better sailing. It was as if destiny took a hand. We maintained a western course passing outside charted waters. We found ourselves caught in a current, running north northeast, very strong. One day when the wind was light we lost our smallest ship to that current, the water drifting her away from us, more powerful than the wind. It took days for her to rejoin us. Since that time many have used that current, taking themselves north to catch the winds which will carry them back to Spain.
And then on a bright, flawless day in the season of Pasqua Florida, the Easter season of Resurrection, we came across the most beautiful land, in a life of looking, I have seen. This soldier’s pen cannot do it justice. Across a wide, golden beach lay verdant groves speckled with rainbows of blossoms and fruits. Behind them stood lofty parks of live oak bearded with strands of that grey moss which floats from their branches. The only word I can find to describe it is soft. It was soft and fragrant and made us feel somehow at peace. It was level land, not mountainous. One of the sailors who’d farmed my plantation in Salvaleon told me it was the best land he’d seen for growing. A colonist’s dream, he said.
I have not forgotten his words.
I have not forgotten the feeling as I landed to claim this marvellous realm. I felt a strange significance even then about the place. I remember as I named it recalling my mother’s gardens and the flowers which grew so abundantly under her care. As the priest led us in prayer and my soldiers planted the standard, I knew that this was important for me. I named it Florida in honour of the season, of its rare beauty, and for my mother.
I named it well.
Later, we found another current running south and as we followed just offshore we began to sense the size of the place. It took us nearly a month to reach what I called the Cape of Currents where we rounded our course again to the west. As we passed the islands at its southern tip we came to a place where the ocean was filled with sea turtles. In one night we took one hundred and sixty; good, sweet meat for the men. Then we went north again and did not see the shore for two days.
When we came upon the coast once more we discovered forbidding, impenetrable mangrove for leagues along the shoreline. It seemed a fortress land protected by this mangrove wall. And just as we despaired of landing we happened upon a huge bay. It offered snug protection and room for the ships to manoeuvre. A perfect anchorage; I remember it well, for that is our destination now.
By this time our ships were in need of repair. We found a hospitable island filled with pine trees beyond its beaches and laid up there, careening our ships, scraping off barnacles, tarring the leaks. The island itself was remarkable. Its beaches were sand but with a plethora of shells washed up somehow by an ocean current. The men spent their spare time collecting the most unusual of these.
The first natives we met, those who lived on that island, seemed friendly. They called themselves Calusa, the “fierce people” in their language. They told us, through our Arawak translators, of their king called Calos, the most powerful man alive. A god, they said. They told us of his vast treasures, his sorcerer powers, his cities built deep in the mangrove. But they would not take us there. Nothing could persuade them. They said Calos would know we were here and would come to us in his own time.
The Arawak feared the Calusa warnings. They advised me to leave. But one does not win new lands through timidity. And with those reports of treasure every man was prepared to stay. I sent out ships’ boats to survey the coastline. One boat found a river mouth and when its crew tried moving upstream was showered with stones from the shoreline. These Calusa were protecting something. At the time I thought it was mere territory. I know better now. For in retrospect, I do not recall having seen a single old person among them.
I should have stayed then despite the resistance. At the place I called Mantanca afterwards, the anchorage where we had careened our ships, Calos’ warriors finally appeared. They had not come to parley. A swarm of them appeared from the forest and flung themselves at the men on the beach. Our gunfire did not stop them. The captain on shore formed a phalanx and it was broken by the savages throwing their atlatls with uncanny accuracy, even plunging themselves into the armoured wall of my men. These Calusa were too much like the Carib: fierce, fearless, painted: screaming their strange incantations.
Then as quickly as they had come, they departed.
Too late for my men ashore: they’d been massacred; their heads hacked off and carried away as trophies. The beach was littered with headless corpses. Volunteers went ashore to bury our dead. I paid each one in gold for his bravery. We kept firing our bombards until the burial party returned. As they did, a single canoe emerged from the mangrove. In it was a girl sent as a sacrifice to the thunder, as I was told by my Arawak translators. She murmured something about great armies gathering on the shore. We had not the strength to engage them.
We have now.
Cortez, the mutinous bastard, has shown me the way. In Darien he conquered a nation. He used horses. The Aztec feared them. He used other tribes as allies. He cracked the fragile egg of the natives with the hammer of his killing. I have done that — the killing. I am the better general. I have brought with me this time two hundred trained men, and horses and big guns, and I am ready.
The prize is so much more than gold.
Nine years have passed. In one voyage all those years ago I discovered the great northern current which led back to Spain, then I found Florida and then Darien. All great discoveries. And what have I to show for this? How often does one examine his life and find in it missed opportunities? All the should-have-dones, mighthave-dones, would-have-dones gather themselves like doors unopened.
I hear shouts from above.
Land.
Sotil has brought us to Florida. It is time to set this pen down. Time to seek my destiny.
This I will be sure of.
This — is mine.