e gestures. The Adelantado no less. "Cristoforo, it looks
satisfaction at last!" And the young Fernando,--"Father, let us sail
west!"

The Admiral was trying to come at that Strait. Earnestly, through Juan
Lepe and through a Jamaican that we had with us, he strove to give and
take light. Yucatan? Was there sea beyond Yucatan? Did sea like a river
cut Yucatan? Might a canoe--might canoes like ours--go by it from this
sea to that sea?

But nothing did we get save that Yucatan was a great country with sea
here and sea there. "A point of the main like Cuba!" said the Admiral.
Behind it, to the north of it, it seemed to us, the greater country
where were the gold, the rich clothing, the temples. But we made out
that Yucatan from sea to sea was many days' march. And as for the
country beyond it, that went on, they thought, forever. They called this
country Anahuac and they meant the same that years afterward Hernando
Cortes found. But we did not know this. We did not know that strange
people and their great treasure.

The Admiral looked out to sea. "I have cried, 'West--west--west!'
through a-many years! Yucatan! But I make out no sea-passage thence into
Vasco da Gama's India! And I am sworn to the Queen and King Ferdinand
this time to find it. So it's south, it's south, brother and son!"

So, our casks being full, our fruit gathered, the sky clear and the wind
fair, we left the west to others and sailed to find the strait in
the south. When we raised our sails that dragon canoe cried out and
marveled. But the cacique with the coronal asked intelligent questions.
The Admiral showed him the way of it, mast and spar and sail cloth, and
how we made the wind our rower. He listened, and at the last he gave
Christopherus Columbus for that instruction the gold disk from his
breast. I do not know--Yucatan might have gone on from that and itself
developed true ship. If it had long enough time! But Europe was at its
doors.

The canoe kept with us for a little, then shouted to see the fair breeze
fill our sails and carry us from them.

It was mid-August. We came to a low-lying land with hills behind. Here
we touched and found Indians, though none such as Yucatan seemed to
breed. It was Sunday and under great trees we had mass, having with us
the Franciscan Pedro of Valencia. From this place we coasted three days,
when again we landed. Here the Indians were of a savage aspect, painted
with black and white and yellow and uttering l