ore, not to have been made
in vain; and as he himself believed that he had stood on the mainland of
Asia he took care to take back with him the only kind of evidence that
was possible namely, the sworn affidavits of the ships' crews.

Perhaps in his madness he would really have gone on and tried to reach
the Golden Chersonesus of Ptolemy, which according to Marco Polo lay just
beyond, and so to steer homeward round Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope;
in which case he would either have been lost or would have discovered
Mexico. The crews, however, would not hear of the voyage being continued
westward. The ships were leaking and the salt water was spoiling the
already doubtful provisions and he was forced to turn back. He stood to
the south-east, and reached the Isle of Pines, to which he gave the name
of Evangelista, where the water-casks were filled, and from there he
tried to sail back to the east. But he found himself surrounded by
islands and banks in every direction, which made any straight course
impossible. He sailed south and east and west and north, and found
himself always back again in the middle of this charmed group of islands.
He spent almost a month trying to escape from them, and once his ship
went ashore on a sandbank and was only warped off with the greatest
difficulty. On July 7th he was back again in the region of the "Queen's
Gardens," from which he stood across to the coast of Cuba.

He anchored and landed there, and being in great distress and difficulty
he had a large cross erected on the mainland, and had mass said. When
the Spaniards rose from their knees they saw an old native man observing
them; and the old man came and sat down beside Columbus and talked to him
through the interpreter. He told him that he had been in Jamaica and
Espanola as well as in Cuba, and that the coming of the Spaniards had
caused great distress to the people of the islands.

He then spoke to Columbus about religion, and the gist of what he said
was something like this: "The performance of your worship seems good to
me. You believe that this life is not everything; so do we; and I know
that when this life is over there are two places reserved for me, to one
of which I shall certainly go; one happy and beautiful, one dreadful and
miserable. Joy and kindness reign in the one place, which is good enough
for the best of men; and they will go there who while they have lived on
the earth have loved peace and goodn