f islands which we call the
Bahamas.[2]

[Footnote 1: Columbus called the new land San Salvador (sahn
sahl-vah-dor', Holy Savior), because October 12, the day on which it was
discovered, was so named in the Spanish calendar.]

[Footnote 2: Three islands of this group, Cat, Turks, and Watlings, have
rival claims as the landing place of Columbus. At present, Watlings
Island is believed to be the one on which he first set foot. Read an
account of the voyage in Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. I., pp.
408-442; Irving's _Life and Voyages of Columbus_, Vol. I., Book III.]

[Illustration: Coat of arms of Columbus]

During ten days he sailed among these islands. Then, turning southward,
he coasted along Cuba to the eastern end, and so to Haiti, which he
named Hispaniola, or Little Spain. There the _Santa Maria_ was wrecked.
The _Pinta_ had by this time deserted him, and, as the _Nina_ could not
carry all the men, forty were left at Hispaniola, to found the first
colony of Europeans in the New World. Giving the men food enough to last
a year, Columbus set sail for Spain on the 3d of January, 1493, and on
March 15 was safe at Palos.

Of the greatness of his discovery, Columbus had not the faintest idea.
That he had found a new world; that a continent was blocking his way to
the East, never entered his mind. He supposed he had landed on some
islands off the east coast of Asia, and as that coast was called the
Indies, and as the islands were reached by sailing westward, they came
to be called the West Indies, and their inhabitants Indians; and the
native races of the New World have ever since been called Indians.
Although Columbus in after years made three more voyages to the New
World, he never found out his mistake, and died firm in the belief that
he had discovered a direct route to Asia.[1]

[Footnote 1: Columbus began his second voyage in September, 1493, and
discovered Jamaica, Porto Rico (por'-to ree'-co), and the islands of the
Caribbean Sea. On his third voyage, in 1498, he discovered the island of
Trinidad, off the coast of Venezuela, and saw South America at the mouth
of the Orinoco River. During his fourth and last voyage, 1502-1504, he
explored the shores of Honduras and the Isthmus of Panama in search of a
strait leading to the Indian Ocean. Of course he did not find it, and,
going back to Spain, he died poor and broken-hearted on May 20, 1506.]

%5. The Atlantic Coast explored.%--And now that Columbus had