CHAPTER XLII.

THE OLD SPANISH BOOK.

Next morning my doubts about Antonio were dispelled, when, from my place of concealment (which was on the brow of a wooded rock), I heard him shouting for me; and once or twice I obtained a glimpse of him, stumbling about as if intoxicated, with the box of case-bottles slung over his back in a Manilla rope.

How he had got either the box or himself ashore was a mystery, the passage along the reef, and the ascent from thence to the upper part of the island being so difficult and so dangerous; but heedless of his invitations to join him, and of his threats for absenting myself, I remained close in my place of concealment, being well aware that if the Cubano was a hateful and perilous companion when sober, he would be doubly so in his present state.

The morning was clear and bright in all its tropical loveliness. My first glance was turned to the sea, where its waters blended in the faintest blue with the flat horizon; but no sail was in sight.

So long had this been the case--so often had I swept the sea at sunrise and at sunset with haggard eyes in vain,--that I repressed the usual sigh; and placing the book I had found open in the sunshine, that its damp leaves might dry, I selected a ripe banana, brought some water in a large leaf from a spring, and proceeded to make my breakfast like a hermit of old.

Concealed by thick shrubs and beds of gigantic tulips, I was certain that Antonio could neither discover nor molest me--at least, that he could not take me by surprise, which was somewhat consoling; for the events of yesterday morning had given me a greater terror of him.

At my feet apparently lay the bay, on the margin of which stood the rude wigwam built by the men of the _Eugenie_; and it made me think sadly of good Marc Hislop and others who were gone.

There lay the rocks which formed the horns of that beautiful bay, tufted with feathery trees, and between them extended the long white line of the coral reef, over which the shadowy vessel had appeared to sail on that eventful night.

On my right towered through the clouds the great mountain, which is yet unnamed; and on my left rose, sheer from the water, the mighty bluff we had first descried at sea.

I took up the book, the leaves of which the warm sunshine had dried and crisped, and its pages made me think of home and of that civilization from which I was exiled--of Eton and other times; and for nearly an hour my eyes were full, my heart sick and heavy, with intense longing for relief, and a weariness of the life I was passing on this lonely island.

After a time I began to read, and in this new or old (it was both to me) sense of pleasure, I forgot all my sorrow and peril.

It was a Spanish book, the title-page of which was gone, but proved to be the first volume of a collection of the voyages and discoveries made by the Spaniards in the olden time.

It related* the adventures of Alphonso de Albuquerque, detailing how he and Tristan da Cunha, each with seven caravels, had sailed from Europe and touched at Teneriffe, while there was an eruption from the crater of the great peak, during which a mighty mass of rock fell down, and brought to light the great diamond, which had since shone at times with such wondrous brilliance in the night, but the exact locality of which baffled all search during day.

* I subsequently learned from Marc Hislop that the work was probably a volume of the _Collection de los Viages y Descubrimientos de los Espanoles en Indias_.

Sailing from thence to the isles named Tristan da Cunha, a storm dispersed the fleet; but Alphonso, after being separated from Don Tristan discovered the island, which he named from himself, and had his name cut on one of the rocks, in the year in which Philip, King of Castile and Emperor of Austria, died; and this was the rock which we had discovered.

Then, in the following year, he sailed to India, of which he became viceroy, for Ferdinand the Catholic. It detailed how, thereafter, he went from the city of Cochin unto the Straits of Malacca, and sent a certain valiant Portuguese knight, named Ruy Nunnez da Cunha, as ambassador to the king of the Seguiers: how he sailed to Java, where he found the wonderful birds of paradise, that came in flights from the southern isles of India, and were fabled to be always on the wing without the power of alighting, till they found some that were drunk with the strength of the nutmeg, which always intoxicates them.

In that sea huge lampreys adhered to the keels of his caravels, and for a time retarded their progress, which was deemed to be enchantment.

Sailing thence, Alphonso discovered an island where the sea-serpent coiled up his monstrous length for certain seasons, guarding caverns that were filled with piles of golden ingots, and casks of orient pearls, rubies, and diamonds; and in this isle were deep bights and bays, where ships with all their crews lay spell-bound by necromancers.

On another island he found a white nation, whose cavaliers were arrayed in fine shirts, slashed doublets of taffeta, and trunk hose, with long swords and short mantles, exactly like the Portuguese; and having money of silver, with many other incredible statements, all tending to assure the reader that this settlement was one of the seven Christian colonies that, under seven bishops, had fled from the Spanish Peninsula when the cross was trampled under the feet of the Moors, and when the churches of Christ were converted into mosques for the worship of Mohammed, as a punishment for the wickedness of Roderick the Last of the Goths.

Returning westward from this wonderful voyage, in 1513, Don Alphonso went from the city of Goa to the straits of Mecca, and passing with twenty caravels through the narrow Gate of Tears into the Red Sea, he bombarded the city of Aden, after which a cross appeared in heaven, shining before his ship, like the pillar of fire that shone before the children of Israel; and two years after, this worthy cavalier, just as he was about to make Shah Ishmael, king of Persia, pay tribute to his master the king of Castile, "passed away to the company of the saints," dying like a true Hidalgo, with his armor on, and his toledo at his girdle.

The real and the marvellous were so curiously blended in these voyages, that I read on, forgetful of all about me, and charmed in spite of my deplorable situation.

At last I came to the history of a valiant mariner who invented a _steamship_ in the time of Charles V.--a narrative which seemed to illustrate the old aphorism, that there is nothing new under the sun.

When Charles the First of Spain and Fifth of Germany was emperor, there lived in the busy town of Barcelona, a certain Blasco de Garay, captain of a merchant ship.

In his youth, Blasco had been one of the mariners of Columbus, whom he accompanied in all those voyages which gave to Castile and Leon a new realm beyond the seas of the southern and western world. He was with him when he landed in Guana Bay, and erected the standard of Ferdinand and Isabella on a shore never before trod by a Christian foot; so this land, which is one of the Bahamas, by the suggestion of Blasco, he named San Salvador; and he was also with him at the discovery of Cuba, of Hispaniola, and the discovery of that mighty continent, the nominal honor of which was robbed from Columbus, by Amerigo Vespucius, the Florentine.

But all this was when Blasco was a boy; so fifty-one years after, that is, in the year of grace 1543, he conceived the idea "of an engine able to move large vessels in calm weather without the use of oars or sails."

So coldly were his proposals met at home, that he was on the point of applying to James V. of Scotland, a monarch then far in advance of any other in Europe, in the cultivation of the arts, of commerce, music, architecture, and painting; but unfortunately he died of a broken heart, and, moreover, his mariners were the scourge of the shores of Portugal and Spain.

But Blasco did not lose heart, for after enduring torrents of ridicule, and experiencing incredible abuse, with threats from the Dominicans that they would burn him as a sorcerer, the Emperor agreed to permit a trial of his great invention, and it took place in presence of a mighty concourse, at Barcelona, on the 17th of June, 1543.

The harbor there is formed by a kind of bight, which lies between the citadel of Monjuich and the city; all the shore of this bay was covered with spectators; the battlements of the governor's palace, and those of the palaces of the counts of Barcelona and of the kings of Arragon, with the spire of St. Mary-of-the-Sea, were also covered by a multitude.

The Emperor was on horseback, surrounded by his courtiers, the commanders of St. Jago of Calatrava, of Alcantara, and other religious and military orders, wearing their crosses and mantles, and all the officials of his splendid household, while his guard of archers, the guards of Monteros de Espinosa, and the old German Lanzknechts, lined the beach with their great gilded partisans, the staves of which were covered with crimson velvet and tasselled with gold.

On beholding all these preparations, and such a concourse of the noble, the wealthy, and great around the Emperor, Blasco de Garay believed that the fortunate hour--"the hour which, according to the general saying, presents itself to every man _once_ in his life for making fame and fortune," had now arrived.

He had spent the night in prayer, at Montserrat, for the success of his invention--dreamt of in youth, studied in manhood, and now matured in age--the ship that would be alike independent of wave and wind.

Montserrat is a few miles from Barcelona, and had then a famous abbey, which was much frequented in consequence of a miraculous image of the Virgin, which was kept in a chapel on the summit of a rock; and in this chapel ninety lamps of solid silver, filled with perfumed oil, burned night and day, and on each was engraved the name and arms of Alphonso de Albuquerque, who brought them from the mosques of the East, beyond the realms of Prester John. In the caverns beneath dwelt many aged hermits and others who wished to seclude themselves from the world; so there did Blasco de Garay spend the night preceding the 17th of June, in meditation and prayer for the success of his wonderful scheme.

A vessel of two hundred tons, named _La Trinidad_, commanded by Captain Pedro de Scarza, was then passing the high bar which is formed at the entrance of the bay by the waters of the Bezos, and the Llobregat mingling with the sea; and when she caught the eye of the Emperor, he ordered Blasco to try his experiment on _her_.

She was laden with corn, and had just come from Monte Colibre or the Columbretes islets, which lie near the coast of Valencia, and poor Pedro de Scarza, in his ignorance and fear of what was about to be done to his ship, rent his beard and tore his slashed doublet as he stamped about her deck and gave himself up for lost, when ordered to furl every thing aloft as _La Trinidad_ was to sail without canvas, or as he believed, about to be bewitched.

Blasco told his secret to none; but it was observed that he placed across the vessel's deck, and bolted thereto an axle, at each end of which was a large wooden wheel. Amidships were several other mysterious wheels with bands and bars, and a necromantic-looking iron boiler of great size, which he filled, however, with water from the holy well of Montserrat.

The moment this water attained boiling heat, by means of a fire which burned in a grating underneath, the wheels revolved, and again Pedro de Scarza rent his beard, while most of his crew jumped overboard; for now the vessel ran right across the Bay of Barcelona _against_ the wind which was blowing fresh, to the great astonishment and terror of the people.

Charles V., whose mind was more occupied by wars and conquests, by battles and sieges, than the arts of science and peace, ordered his treasurer to inspect this strange machine and report upon it.

The treasurer, in doing so, got his trunk breeches torn by a portion of the machinery, by which accident about three pecks (Spanish) of fine cedar sawdust, which formed the bombasting thereof, were spilled on the deck of _La Trinidad_; so being a solemn, proud, and pompous grandee of Old Castile, he justly considered himself insulted by a vile mechanical contrivance, which he loudly denounced, stating "that it was not worth adopting, as the vessel did not go more than eight miles in two hours, which any caravel might do; and that the boiler was a Satanic affair, which was liable to burst and scald good Christians."

The Emperor, who was on the eve of departing from Spain to invade France, thus forbade Blasco to think more of his invention; but he bestowed upon him forty thousand maravedis, and created him a knight of the Dove of Castile--an order instituted in 1379, by Henry II., King of Castile and Lord of Biscay--the same who was poisoned by a handsome pair of buskins sent to him by Mohammed II., the Red-faced king of Granada.

But Blasco de Garay, on seeing no further hope of success with his long-cherished steam engine, in the bitterness of his heart dashed it to pieces with a hammer, thus destroying in an instant all that the fond hopes, the deep thoughts, and the labor of a lifetime had developed and constructed.

Disgusted with the world and weary of it, he retired to one of the little hermitages in the Rock of Montserrat, only in time to prevent the Inquisition from burning him as a sorcerer, and there he died, in the year of the Emperor's abdication, 1555.