Panama City seemed magnificent to Diego and Bernardo compared to the small Pueblo de los Angeles, anything would have. For three centuries the riches of the Americas had passed through there, destined for the royal coffers of Spain. From the port goods were transported in mule trains through the mountains, and then in boats down the Chagres River to the Caribbean Sea. The importance of that port, like that of Portobelo on the Atlantic coast of the isthmus, had declined at the same rate that shipments of gold and silver from the colonies dwindled.
It was possible to go from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic by sailing around the extreme southern tip of the continent at Cape Horn, but a mere glance at the map illustrates what an endless journey that was.
As Padre Mendoza explained to the boys, Cape Horn lies where the world of God ends and the world of ghosts begins. Trekking across the narrow waist of the isthmus of Panama, a trip that takes only a couple of days, saves months of sailing, which was why Emperor Charles V, as early as 1534, had dreamed of digging a canal to join the two oceans, a preposterous idea, like so many that occur to certain monarchs. The major drawback in Panama was the miasma the gaseous emanations rising from rotten jungle vegetation and the quagmires of the rivers, sources of horrifying plagues. A sobering number of travelers in that country died from yellow fever, cholera, and dysentery. Some also went mad, it was said, but I suppose that applied to fanciful people little fitted for wandering around in the tropics. So many died in epidemics that the grave diggers did not shovel dirt over the common graves piled with corpses because they knew that more would be added in the next hours.
To protect Diego and Bernardo from such dangers, Padre Mendoza gave each of them a medal of Saint Christopher, the patron saint of travelers and sailors. Those talismans gave miraculous results, and both survived. A good thing, too, because otherwise I would not be telling this story. The stifling tropical heat took the boys’ breath, and the mosquitoes were so big they had to swat them with their boots, but everything else went well. Diego was enchanted with the city, where no one was watching them and where there were so many temptations to choose from. Only Bernardo’s sanctimoniousness saved his brother from ending up in some gambling den or in the arms of a woman of goodwill and bad reputation, where he might have perished from a knifing or some exotic illness. Bernardo did not close his eyes that night, not so much to defend them from bandits as to look after Diego.
The two milk brothers and friends ate at the port, then passed the night in a cheap inn where travelers made themselves as comfortable as possible on pallets on the floor. By paying double, they were entitled to hammocks covered with filthy mosquito nets, where they were more or less safe from rats and cockroaches. The next day they started across the mountains toward Cruces on a good cobbled road the width of two mules, which with their characteristic lack of invention regarding names, the Spanish called the Camino Real. In the high country the air was not as heavy and humid as at sea level, and the view of the countryside below was a true paradise. Against the unbroken green of the jungle, richly colored butterflies and jewel-bright birds flashed like magical brush strokes The natives were extremely decent; instead of taking advantage of the two young travelers, which they had a reputation for doing, they offered them fish with fried plantain and put them up in a hut that was crawling with vermin but at least offered protection from the torrential rains. The boys were advised to stay away from tarantulas and the green toads that spit in the eyes of the unwary, blinding them. They were also warned of a variety of nut that burns the enamel off teeth and produces lethal stomach cramps.
In some stretches the Chagres River was a dense swamp, but in others the water was crystal clear. River passengers were transported in canoes or flat boats with a capacity of eight or ten passengers along with their baggage. Diego and Bernardo had to wait a whole day, until there were enough people to fill a boat. They wanted to take a dip in the river to cool off the blazing heat had stunned the snakes and silenced the monkeys but as soon as they put a toe in the water, the caimans that had been dozing beneath the surface, blending into the slime, came to life. The boys beat a quick retreat, accompanied by the hoots of the natives. Neither of them dared drink the water their amiable hosts offered it was green with tadpoles they simply bore their thirst until other passengers, rough merchants and adventurers, shared their bottles of wine and beer. The boys accepted so eagerly and drank with such gusto that afterward neither of them could remember that part of the trip, except for the strange way the natives had of navigating the river. Six men equipped with long poles were stationed on two long narrow catwalks on either side of the boat. Facing the bow, they buried the tips of the poles in the riverbed and then pushed with all their might to move the boat forward. Because of the infernal heat, they were entirely naked. The trip took about eighteen hours, which Diego and Bernardo passed in a state of anesthetized hallucination, spreadeagled on their backs beneath a canvas protecting them from a merciless sun. When they reached their destination, the other travelers, elbowing each other and laughing, had to push them off the boat. That was how, in the twelve leagues between the mouth of the river and the city of Portobelo, they lost the trunk containing most of the princely wardrobe Alejandro de la Vega had acquired for his son. It was actually a lucky stroke, because the latest European fashions had not as yet reached California. Diego’s clothing was frankly laughable.
Portobelo, founded in 1500 on the Gulf of Darien, was an essential city; treasures going to Spain were shipped from there, and merchandise from Europe was received. In the opinion of the captains of the time, it was the most efficient and secure port in the Indies, defended by several forts in addition to barriers of coral reefs. The Spanish constructed the forts with coral mined from the depths of the sea, workable when it was still wet, but so resistant when it dried that cannonballs scarcely made a dent in it. Once a year, when the Royal Treasure Fleet arrived, there was a fair that lasted forty days; at that time the population grew by thousands and thousands of visitors.
Diego and Bernardo had heard that in the Casa Real del Tesoro, gold bars were stacked up like firewood, but they were in for a disappointment: the city had declined in recent years, partly because of attacks by pirates, but most of all because the American colonies were not as profitable for Spain as they had been. The city’s wood and stone dwellings were discolored by rain, the public buildings and storehouses were overgrown with weeds, and the forts languished in an eternal siesta. Despite all that, there were several ships in the port and swarms of slaves loading precious metals, cotton, tobacco, and chocolate, as well as unloading crates for the colonies. Among the vessels was the Madre de Dios, “Mother of God,” on which Diego and Bernardo would cross the Atlantic. That ship, constructed fifty years before but still in excellent condition, was a three-masted square-rigger, larger, slower, and heavier than the schooner Santa Lucia, and better suited for ocean travel. Her crowning glory was a spectacular figurehead in the form of a siren. Sailors believed that bare breasts calmed the sea, and those of this marvel were voluptuous.
The captain, Santiago de Leon, appeared to be a man of unique personality. He was short and wiry, with carved features in a face weathered by many seas. He limped, owing to a clumsy operation to remove a musket ball from his left leg; the surgeon had not been able to extract it, and the attempt had left the captain crippled and in pain for the rest of his days. The man was not given to complaining; he gritted his teeth, dosed himself with laudanum, and found distraction in his collection of fabulous maps. These charts pinpointed the places that voyagers tried to locate for centuries, with little success, like El Dorado, the city of pure gold; Atlantis, the sunken continent whose inhabitants are human but have gills like fish; the mysterious islands of Luquebaralideaux in the Mer Sauvage, populated by enormous boneless sausages with sharp teeth that move in herds and feed on the mustard that flows in the streams and is said to cure even the worst wounds. The captain entertained himself by copying the maps and adding sites of his own invention, with detailed descriptions, then selling them for a king’s ransom to antique dealers in London. He was not deceiving anyone; he always signed them in his own hand and added a mysterious phrase that anyone in the know would recognize: “A numbered work from the Encyclopedia of Desires, complete version.” By Friday the cargo was on board, but the Madre de Dios did not set sail because Christ had died on a Friday. That was a bad day to begin a voyage. On Saturday the forty-man crew refused to leave port because a redheaded man had walked by them on the dock and a dead pelican had dropped onto the ship’s bridge two ominous signs. Finally on Sunday, Santiago de Leon got his men to unfurl the sails. The only passengers were Diego, Bernardo, an auditor returning from Mexico to his own country, and his whiney, ugly thirty-year-old daughter. This senorita fell in love with each and every one of the rough sailors, but they fled from her as if from the devil; everyone knows that virtuous women on board ship attract bad weather and other calamities. The men reached the conclusion that her virtue was the result of lack of opportunity, not her nature. The auditor and his daughter shared a tiny stateroom, but Diego and Bernardo, like the crew, slept in hammocks strung in the foul-smelling mess deck of the ship. The captain’s cabin on the quarterdeck served as office, command center, dining room, and game room for officers and passengers. The door and the furniture folded for convenience, like most things on board, where space was the greatest luxury. During their several weeks at sea, the boys did not have an instant of privacy; the most basic functions were performed on a bucket in full view of everyone, if the seas were running high, or if calm, perched on a board projecting out over the water and fitted with a hole. No one knew how the modest daughter of the auditor managed, because no one ever saw her empty a chamber pot.
The sailors laid bets about it, at first laughing boisterously but later sobered by fear: constipation that lasted that long had to be the work of witchcraft. Aside from the constant movement and the crowding, the most notable thing about the ship was the noise. Wood creaked, metal clinked, barrels rolled, ropes moaned, and water lashed the hull.
For Diego and Bernardo, accustomed to the solitude, space, and silence of California, adjusting to life on shipboard was not easy.
Diego liked to sit on the shoulders of the figurehead, a perfect place to gaze at the infinite line of the horizon, be splashed with salt water, and watch the dolphins. He would put an arm around the wooden damsel’s head and grip her nipples with his toes. Considering the boy’s athleticism, the captain limited himself to ordering him to tie a rope around his waist; if he fell from there, the ship would pass right over him. Later, however, when he caught Diego at the tip of the mainmast, more than a hundred feet in the air, he said nothing. He had decided that if the boy was fated to die young, he could not prevent it. There was always activity on the ship, and it went on through the night, though most of the work was done during the day. Bells signaled the first watch at noon, when the sun was at its zenith and the captain took a sighting to fix their location. At that hour the cook handed out a pint of lemonade per man, to prevent scurvy, and then the mate distributed rum and tobacco, the only vices allowed on board, where betting money, fighting, falling in love, or even blaspheming was forbidden. At nautical twilight, that mysterious hour of dawn and evening when stars twinkle in the heavens but the line of the horizon is visible, the captain took new sightings with his sextant and consulted his chronometers and the large book of celestial ephemerides that indicate the position of the stars at every moment. For Diego, that geometric operation was fascinating; all the stars looked alike to him, and in every direction he saw nothing but the same lead-colored sea and the same white sky, but before long he learned to observe with the eyes of a navigator. The captain also constantly consulted the barometer that signaled the changes in air pressure that heralded storms and the days when his leg would be more painful.
At first, milk, meat, and vegetables were served at meals, but before a week had gone by, everyone aboard was limited to beans, rice, dried fruit, and the eternal hard-as-marble biscuits seething with weevils.
There was also salted meat, which the cook soaked a couple of days in water and vinegar before tossing it into the pot, hoping it would be less like saddle leather. What a great business deal his father could make with his smoked meat, Diego thought, but Bernardo pointed out that it was a pipe dream to think they could get sufficient supplies to Portobelo. At the captain’s table, to which Diego, the auditor and his daughter though not Bernardo were always invited there was also pickled cow’s tongue, olives, cheese from La Mancha, and wine. The captain put his chessboard and his cards at the passengers’ disposal, along with a handful of books that only Diego was interested in. Among them he found a couple of essays about possible independence for the colonies. Diego admired the example of the United States, which had freed itself from the English yoke, but it had not occurred to him that similar aspirations on the part of Spanish colonists in America might be praiseworthy until he read the captain’s publications.
Santiago de Leon turned out to be such an entertaining conversationalist that Diego sacrificed hours of happy acrobatics in the rigging in order to talk with him and study his fantastic maps. The captain, a solitary man, discovered the pleasure of sharing his knowledge with a young and inquisitive mind. The man was a tireless reader and always carried boxes of books that he exchanged in every port. He had been around the world several times, and he knew lands as strange as those described on his fabulous maps; he had been near death so many times that he had lost any fear of living. The most revealing thing to Diego, who was accustomed to absolute truths, was that this man with a Renaissance mentality doubted nearly everything that formed the intellectual and moral world of Alejandro de la Vega, Padre Mendoza, and Diego’s schoolmaster. At times Diego had questioned the rigid precepts hammered into his brain since his birth, but he had never dared challenge them aloud. When some rule made him too uncomfortable, he quietly ignored it; he never rebelled openly. With Santiago de Leon he dared for the first time to talk about subjects he had never discussed with his father. He was amazed to discover that there were many ways to think. De Leon opened his eyes to the fact that the Spanish were not the only ones who claimed superiority over the rest of humanity; every nationality suffered from the same delusion. In wars, the Spanish committed exactly the same atrocities as the French, or any other army: they raped, robbed, tortured, and murdered; Christians, Moors, and Jews all maintained that their God was the only true God, and held other religions in contempt. The captain was in favor of abolishing the monarchy and making the colonies independent, two concepts that were revolutionary to Diego, who had been raised with the belief that the king was holy and the obligation of every Spaniard was to conquer and Christianize other lands. Santiago de Leon exalted the equality, liberty, and fraternity of the French revolution, though he had never accepted the French invasion of Spain.