The Fountain of Youth
Colum, Padraic
451 September 16, 1925 THE COMMONWEAL THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH By PADRAIC COLUM THERE was a land that was 300 miles away from Hispaniola . . . Bimini was the name of that land. Men...
...They killed turtles that they found on the shore, and they roasted the meat, and ate, and set out upon the way, cutting through the thickets that were before them...
...Then, in one ship, and with but a few followers, he went to the islands in the sea around Hispaniola that he had not yet visited...
...They went amongst the trees and they went following the heavy parrots that flew before them...
...On they sailed, and the seams of the ship opened, and the hoops fell from the casks and the water they had brought spilled out...
...I will show you the way...
...It was Florida...
...This was Bimini, but where were the people of Bimini...
...From island to island he went, drinking at the springs and the hidden fountains in each island, and in each leaving behind some man who had given up the quest, and who, marrying an Indian girl, had settled down to live in a straw hut there...
...All golden that king seemed as he stood upon the raft that in the sunset, went across the lake Guatavita...
...She was an Indian woman...
...For they knew that they would be blamed for not living according to the years that they had in the world, instead of feasting and making love and dancing under the trees in Bimini...
...Men came to Ponce de Leon, governor of Porto Rico, and told him of other lands—lands to the north and to the west—but they could not make him think of another land than Bimini...
...The horse and the hound and the old Indian woman lay on the ground, dreaming themselves back to youthfulness...
...Now he went and took the breastplate and the helmet that Ponce de Leon had laid down, and he stalked on...
...At last, on that island, they found a human being...
...He called to them, but no voice came back...
...She stood at the wheel and she piloted the ship around and between the islands, calling out the names of the islands, and telling Ponce de Leon that Bimini was not to be found on any of them452 THE COMMONWEAL September 16, 1925 She steered for a coast that was south from the islands...
...He took off his breastplate and his helmet, and he stooped down to drink at the fountain...
...The rags that were their clothes dropped from their shrunken bodies...
...A time came when Ponce de Leon gave up his governorship of Porto Rico...
...Men came to him and told him of Quivera, that city that fronted a river on which floated canoes with prows of gold— great canoes that held as many as forty Indians, each with a crown of gold upon his head...
...The old horse and the old hound went down and drank...
...Then the horse and the hound and the Indian woman lay down upon the ground...
...And then they came in sight of a glade, and they knew that they were in Bimini, and that before them was the Fountain of Youth...
...But still Ponce de Leon kept his bright breastplate and his polished helmet...
...An Indian beside one of the trees had shot the arrow...
...All golden the waters seemed in the light of the rising sun...
...There were trees there that were the noblest and tallest that Ponce de Leon had ever seen...
...He was sixty years old when he said this...
...Men had been in Bimini, and they had seen there men and women whom they had known before and in other places...
...He sailed for Hispaniola, from whence he would sail for the place where Bimini was...
...There was no gold nor silver there...
...There was a fountain there, and whoever bathed in that fountain or drank of its waters, would have again his or her youth—and be as vigorous and as fair to look upon as they had been in the years before they were thirty...
...So the crone went down to the ship with them...
...As he stood there listening for a voice to come back to him, La Vieja went down and drank at the fountain...
...But his thought was upon the land that was 300 miles away from Hispaniola more than upon the land that he governed...
...And now they had companions...
...He and his men searched through it, eating the fruits they found, and drinking at every spring and every hidden fountain...
...But man after man of Ponce de Leon's followers lay down in the jungle and died...
...Night and day they had to bail the water out...
...soon after that there were not enough to man two ships...
...in that land, La Vieja swore, was Bimini—and in it was the Fountain of Youth...
...And other men came and talked to him about the lake Guatavita, in which bathed El Dorado, the gilded man...
...Then they blew upon his body, through copper tubes, powder of gold...
...He built roads and he commanded armies...
...He came to an island that seemed to have no people upon it...
...But Ponce de Leon thought little upon what they told him, for his thoughts were upon Bimini, the land that is 300 miles from Hispaniola...
...Soon there were not men enough left to man his three ships...
...And when they were able to catch a shark and eat it, they thought they had a fortunate day...
...At last she brought them to a land that Ponce de Leon named...
...These men and women would not come back to the places that had known them...
...The powder stayed upon the fragrant gums...
...The worms that were in that sea bored through the wood of the ship, so that it nearly settled down on the water...
...To Bimini," Ponce de Leon and his men said —the few men who remained with him—but their voices were no louder than whispers...
...Ponce de Leon called the island after her—La Vieja, the Old Woman—and he re-named his ship, calling it La Vieja also...
...To Bimini," La Vieja said—and her voice was loud and clear...
...They went towards where they heard birds singing...
...They came out of the thickets and went across a grassy country...
...I will drink now," said Ponce de Leon, the discoverer of Florida, the governor of Porto Rico...
...Every morning at sunrise the priests of his god rubbed him all over with fragrant gums...
...It pierced his chest, and Ponce de Leon fell down upon his face, his mouth to the bubbling water...
...there were no spices and no pearls...
...For an old horse that had come up to them while they slept, hobbled behind, them, and an old hound went limping beside it...
...And the trees stood around a spring, the waters of which bubbled up from the ground...
...Ponce de Leon and his followers drank of the waters and bathed in the waters of every place they came to—and then each man waited to see if the magic change would come...
...The bottom of the lake was laid over with golden dust, and golden ornaments lay strewn upon it...
...He put on the bright breastplate and the polished helmet that he had worn in many wars, he went into all the churches that he had seen builded, he took farewell of the garden with the orange trees that he planted, and the pool that he had dug, and he took farewell of the people young and old that he had governed—and he went down to the harbor where his three ships were, all ready for the voyage...
...On every island he went to, he heard of searchers for Bimini-—white men in great ships with sails, and red men in canoes—they had been there before him and had gone on...
...And even as he stooped down, an arrow flew towards him...
...very loudly the birds sang there, as if every tree was crowded with birds...
...Soon there were none left but La Vieja and Ponce de Leon...
...And those who came there with their king would throw into the lake their golden bracelets...
...Men came to Ponce de Leon, governor of Porto Rico, and asked help of him to win to Quivera, and to the lake Guatavita—and to gather the gold that was in these places...
...she was stooped and wrinkled...
...Men had been in Bimini and had seen there those whom they had known as old leaders of armies, old exploring men, old sacristans and old beggars— old maids and old mistresses—and they had come away, scandalized at what they had seen...
...Having come to the middle of the lake, the gilded man would plunge into It, and the golden powder that was upon his body would become a gleam in the water...
...He was the King of the Indians there...
...But La Vieja still steered it and the ship went on...
...he raised cities and he meted out justice—Ponce de Leon, governor of Porto Rico...
...but her voice was yet very loud and clear as she called out to them—"Ye have come to find Bimini...
...Now there are 700 islands in the sea that is around Hispaniola, and no one could tell him whether Bimini was, or was not, on any one of the islands...
...He gathered the most faithful of his army about him, and he said—"We will go to Bimini...
Vol. 2 • September 1925 • No. 19
