SIGNS OF LAND. 



163 



who were on several occasions brought into communication by 

 the sending of boats from the one to the other. The captaina 

 of the Pinta and the Nina were aware of what was transpiring, 

 but for the time being maintained a cautious neutrality. The 

 sea continued calm as the Guadalquivir at Seville, the air was 

 laden with tropical fragrance, and in twenty-four hours the fleet, 

 apparently at rest, glided imperceptibly over one hundred and 

 eighty miles. This motionless rapidity, as it were, thoroughly 

 terrified the crew, and, breaking out into open mutiny, they re- 

 fused, on the 10th of October, to go any farther westward. The 

 Nina and the Pinta rejoined the Santa Maria; the brothers 

 Pinzon, followed by their men, leaped upon her deck, and com- 

 manded Columbus to put his ship about and return to Palos. 



At this most vital point of the narrative, our authorities are 

 contradictory, while the journal of Columbus himself is silent. 

 According to Oviedo, — a writer who obtained his information from 

 an enemy of Columbus, — the latter yielded to his men so far as to 

 propose a compromise, and to consent to return unless land was 

 discovered in three days' sail. To say the least, such a submis- 

 sion to the menaces and behests of his infuriated subalterns was 

 not an act compatible with the character of Columbus, with his 

 Well known self-reliance, and his openly expressed and constantly 

 reiterated confidence in the Divine protection. The Catholic 

 biography, which we have quoted, attributes the pacification of 

 the revolt directly to the Divine interference, asserting that, no 

 human philosophy can explain this sudden and complete suspen- 

 sion of the prevailing exasperation and animosity. It is certain, 

 at any rate, that the demonstration, which began at night-fall, 

 had ceased long before the morning's dawn. 



And now pigeons flew in abundance about the ships, and 

 green canes and reeds floated languidly by. A bush, its 

 branches red with berries, was recovered from the water by 

 the Nina. A tuft of grass and a piece of wood, which appeared 

 to have been cut by some iron instrument, were picked up by 



