ched a cacique with his wife and family and
complete retinue came off in canoes to the ship, begging Columbus to take
him and his household back to Spain.

Columbus considers this family, and thinks wistfully how well they would
look in Barcelona. Father dressed in a cap of gold and green jewels,
necklace and earrings of the same; mother decked out in similar regalia,
with the addition of a small cotton apron; two sons and five brothers
dressed principally in a feather or two; two daughters mother-naked,
except that the elder, a handsome girl of eighteen, wears a jewelled
girdle from which depends a tablet as big as an ivy leaf, made of various
coloured stones embroidered on cotton. What an exhibit for one of the
triumphal processions: "Native royal family, complete"! But Columbus
thinks also of the scarcity of provisions on board his ships, and wonders
how all these royalties would like to live on a pint of sour wine and a
rotten biscuit each per day. Alas! there is not sour wine and rotten
biscuit enough for his own people; it is still a long way to Espanola;
and he is obliged to make polite excuses, and to say that he will come
back for his majesty another time.

It was on the 20th of August that Columbus, having the day before seen
the last of the dim blue hills of Jamaica, sighted again the long
peninsula of Hayti, called by him Cape San Miguel, but known to us as
Cape Tiburon; although it was not until he was hailed by a cacique who
called out to him "Almirante, Almirante," that the seaworn mariners
realised with joy that the island must be Espanola. But they were a long
way from Isabella yet. They sailed along the south coast, meeting
contrary winds, and at one point landing nine men who were to cross the
island, and try to reach Isabella by land. Week followed week, and they
made very poor progress. In the beginning of September they were caught
in a severe tempest, which separated the ships for a time, and held the
Admiral weather-bound for eight days. There was an eclipse of the moon
during this period, and he took advantage of it to make an observation
for longitude, by which he found himself to be 5 hrs. 23 min., or 80 deg.
40', west of Cadiz. In this observation there is an error of eighteen
degrees, the true longitude of the island of Saona, where the observation
was taken, being 62 deg. 20' west of Cadiz; and the error is accounted
for partly by the inaccuracy of the tables of Regiomontanus an