ve him better
ships so that he could try it all over again.

Here, you see, was still another disappointing defeat for Columbus. For
after he had been on the American coast for almost a year; after he
had come so near to what he felt to be the long-looked-for path to the
Indies; after most wonderful adventures on sea and land, he turned his
back on it all, without really having accomplished what he set out to do
and, as I have told you, steered for Hayti.

But it was not at all easy to get to Hayti in those leaky ships of his.
In fact it was not possible to get there with them at all; for on the
twenty-third of June, 1503, when he had reached the island of Jamaica
he felt that his ships would not hold out any longer. They were full
of worm-holes; they were leaking badly; they were strained and battered
from the storms. He determined, therefore, to find a good harbor
somewhere on the island of Jamaica and go in there for repairs. But he
could not find a good one; his ships grew worse and worse; every day's
delay was dangerous; and for fear the ships would sink and carry the
crews to the bottom of the sea, Columbus decided to run them ashore
anyhow. This he did; and on the twelfth of August, 1503, he deliberately
headed for the shore and ran his ships aground in a little bay on the
island of Jamaica still known as Sir Christopher's Cove. And there the
fleet was wrecked.

The castaways lashed the four wrecks together; they built deck-houses
and protections so as to make themselves as comfortable as possible, and
for a whole year Columbus and his men lived there at Sir Christopher's
Cove on the beautiful island of Jamaica.

It proved anything but beautiful for them, however. It makes a good deal
of difference, you know, in enjoying things whether you are well and
happy. If you are hungry and can't get anything to eat, the sky does not
look so blue or the trees so green as if you were sitting beneath them
with a jolly picnic party and with plenty of lunch in the baskets.

It was no picnic for Columbus and his companions. That year on
the island of Jamaica was one of horror, of peril, of sickness, of
starvation. Twice, a brave comrade named Diego Mendez started in an
open boat for Hayti to bring relief. The first time he was nearly
shipwrecked, but the second time he got away all right. And then for
months nothing was heard of him, and it was supposed that he had been
drowned. But the truth was that Governor Ovando, had