rning. As soon as they were
inside the river the people came flocking down with stories of the gale
and of all the wrecks that there had been on the coast. Columbus hurried
away from the excited crowds to write a letter to the King of Portugal,
asking him for a safe conduct to Spain, and assuring him that he had come
from the Indies, and not from any of the forbidden regions of Guinea.

The next day brought a visit from no less a person than Bartholomew Diaz.
Columbus had probably met him before in 1486, when Diaz had been a
distinguished man and Columbus a man not distinguished; but now things
were changed. Diaz ordered Columbus to come on board his small vessel in
order to go and report himself to the King's officers; but Columbus
replied that he was the Admiral of the Sovereigns of Castile, "that he
did not render such account to such persons," and that he declined to
leave his ship. Diaz then ordered him to send the captain of the Nina;
but Columbus refused to send either the captain or any other person, and
otherwise gave himself airs as the Admiral of the Ocean Seas. Diaz then
moderated his requests, and merely asked Columbus to show him his letter
of authority, which Columbus did; and then Diaz went away and brought
back with him the captain of the Portuguese royal yacht, who came in
great state on board the shabby little Nina, with kettle-drums and
trumpets and pipes, and placed himself at the disposal of Columbus. It
is a curious moment, this, in which the two great discoverers of their
time, Diaz and Columbus, meet for an hour on the deck of a forty-ton
caravel; a curious thing to consider that they who had performed such
great feats of skill and bravery, one to discover the southernmost point
of the old world and the other to voyage across an uncharted ocean to the
discovery of an entirely new world, could find nothing better to talk
about than their respective ranks and glories; and found no more
interesting subject of discussion than the exact amount of state and
privilege which should be accorded to each.

During the day or two in which Columbus waited in the port crowds of
people came down from Lisbon to see the little Nina, which was an object
of much admiration and astonishment; to see the Indians also, at whom
they greatly marvelled. It was probably at this time that the letter
addressed to Luis de Santangel, containing the first official account of
the voyage, was despatched.