Excerpt from
Voyage and Shipwreck of the Great Ship São Paulo
Ocean by Vija Celmins
Prologue
Being about to write down the disastrous voyage of this great ship, it occurred to me how rash men are in their undertakings, chief among which, or one of the greatest, was confiding their lives to four planks lashed together, and to the discretion of the furious winds, with which they live in such wise that we can rightly say quia ventus est vita mea [my life is like a wind], and thus they traverse the vast expanse of the watery element, encompassing the whole earth. This enterprise they undertake so unmindful of their consciences, and of what they are beholden to God, that where they should be most devout, which is in the worst dangers wherein they find themselves, there they are most negligent and careless, committing a thousand different sins, whereby they provoke the wrath of the Lord to descend on them, as it did on those who were aboard this great ship. And withal He is so merciful that He never strikes so harshly but that He recalls his ancient mercy, for the amendment of the guilty and as an example to those who would mock at them. All those who read the narratives of this history will be able to do this, and so it will help to amend each and every heart, placing their ultimate fate in Him, as being the beginning and end of all things. And in this narrative I will not relate anything other than what I actually saw, as briefly as possible, so that by avoiding a prolix story I will also avoid wearying the reader.
The Work Begins
This great ship was on the point of sailing from Santa Catarina de Ribamar when one night a violent cross-wind severed one of the two cables which she had laid out to seawards, and we were within an ace of being driven ashore, because the ship was anchored in only three and half fathoms. We were urgently compelled to ask help and aid by firing off our great guns all night, so that they could hear and help us with anchors and cables, as did all the officers of our lord the king at Belém, with the boats of the other ships in our company. They worked throughout the night in making us fast and leaving us secure and out of danger. It is certain that the great care taken that night was the salvation of the ship and the reason why she was not beaten to pieces at the door of the house, which would to God she had been and thus the end of her. It seems that He did not wish this to happen because we did not deserve it, on account of the sins of many of us who were in the ship. For even though this would have involved losses both for the royal treasury as for private individuals, yet it would have subsequently saved us from so many days and months of weary voyaging, with the people exhausted and wasted away from most deadly diseases, famines, and the most frightful misadventures imaginable; for we saw and tasted death so many times and in such figures, guises, and manners, and finally we nearly all lost our lives in a place where no great ship of Christians, Muslims, or heathen had ever been. And those of us who survived the fury and misfortune of this shipwreck, I think may be considered as the most unhappy of all, for most of us were and are the victims of such strange and extraordinary diseases that I doubt if our miserable existence can properly be termed life.
. . .
Thus it was that when we were in the position for doubling the Cape, there were great arguments between the captain, the pilot, and the master, with others who understood navigational problems, over whether it was better to make the voyage via the outer or the inner passage. And they finally decided that it was best to take the outer passage, for reasons which then seemed best and most forceful to them. And this decision was the cause of the ship sailing so far away beyond India to end her days in a land which cost so dear to the wretched sailors and passengers on board, due to the cruel shipwreck which we suffered, which began on 20 January, on a very dismal, dark, and terrifying morning, when we sighted an island on about the latitude of the equator or a little below it, as we guessed, and we were bearing down on it from a distance of about seven or eight leagues. And as soon as we sighted it, anyone can imagine how nervous our hearts and souls felt after all the trials we had undergone and with the wind blowing with gale force from the west, and on a lee shore, and heavy showers and thunderstorms, for when one stopped another began with greater force and fury. The seas were very big and running so high that we nearly foundered owing to the hawseholes which were still open, and which we had great difficulty in closing with coverlets and mattresses that we stuffed in them, as we had no time to do anything better. And our pilot, instead of tacking out to seawards on a southerly tack, continued on a northernly course until eleven o’clock, thinking to clear the island by holding on this course, which he could not do with the west wind. And if when he had sighted the island in the morning he had stood off on the other tack, he would have had more sea-room, and we could have sailed on and not been wrecked. But when he wanted to do this, it was too late, for it was blowing harder than ever and getting stronger all the time, and the ship was well among the many islands which lie offshore along the southern coast of Sumatra with its great bays. As we went thus sailing along on a southern tack, a sudden gust of wind struck us so heavily that we were unrigged in a trice, the partners of both masts being carried away at the same time together with all the shrouds, leaving all the sails torn and loose and we ourselves in manifest peril for our lives. And while we did not fail to work hard in this emergency, we first had recourse to the divine aid, and placed on the poop the banner of the holy relics, which our lady the queen gives to these great ships so that they can seek help therefrom in all their trials and tribulations, as we had done in all the past storms. And when this banner had been hoisted in position, everyone fell on their knees and prayed to it with many tears and sighs, imploring Our Lord for mercy and the pardon of our sins. Having done this, we tried everything possible to help ourselves, unpicking a hempen cable from which we made cords to take the place of shrouds and sustain the masts. We also worked at fixing a jury-sail for the foremast. And thus we lay a-hull all day, without sails, nor would any of the seamen do a hand’s turn, because as soon as they had sighted land, most of them had given themselves up for lost. And the first one was the pilot, who for his previous philosophizing now turned out to be absolutely useless, and his heart failed him and he never said a word. Quite different was the behavior of the second pilot, who was an outstanding seamen and sailor, who until the ship ran ashore and stuck fast, never lost his presence of mind nor ability to command. In this way we lay a-hull during the rest of the day, off the shore, and comforting ourselves with the daylight.
At nightfall the wind began to abate somewhat, but the sea lost nothing of its rage and fury. As soon as the wind dropped, we had a succession of violent thunderstorms in the gloaming, and then a most dark and stormy night supervened, during which time each thunderstorm left us waterlogged in the trough of the waves which devoured and battered us to pieces. While we were in this state, and completely hopeless, thinking all our previous work in vain, the father took leave of the son, and brother from brother, and the messmate from his comrade, each one asking the other’s forgiveness, everybody making it up with everyone else during the whole night to the accompaniment of shrieks and cries. Miraculously, in a night like this with such a storm, and with our snouts towards the shore in the trough of the waves, we still did not run aground. And we passed over without seeing or knowing how, several shoals half a league long, on which the sea broke most terribly, which we subsequently were hardly able to negotiate in broad daylight, serene sky, and a favorable stern breeze, in a very small ship. At dawn we anchored with one cable off the shore, comforting ourselves with the light of day, and commending ourselves to the mercy of God.
. . .
We cut away the masts to prevent the ship breaking up completely, and they floated out to sea with the yards, all mixed up with the rigging. And so this miserable, pitiful, broken and torn great ship was wrecked on this obscure and uninhabited land, on Tuesday 21 January of the year 1561.
As soon as the ship struck and began to list on the seaward side, some men, thinking that she would turn turtle and frightened of being trapped below, made themselves ready and swam ashore in the surge of the furious waves that were breaking on the island a league away. And although they were strong swimmers, twelve or thirteen of the first were dashed to pieces, and others were severely hurt and very badly injured, so that some of them subsequently died. And the loss would have been much heavier if the captain had not asserted himself and forbidden anyone to throw himself into the sea, giving them hope that with the help of God they might yet be saved. And at this moment they succeeded in launching the skiff which was on the deck, and the storm was rapidly moderating and the weather improving, as if it was no longer desirous of completely destroying us; because as it had beaten us, it now relented, and within a couple of hours was quiet and calm, as if there had never been a storm at all.
Excerpt from The Tragic History of the Sea, edited and translated by C. R. Boxer (University of Minnesota Press)