de his way along that inhospitable coast,
which trended steadily toward the southwest, a direction agreeing with
his conceptions of the Asian coast as described by Marco Polo. Surely,
he thought, he was on the coast of Indo-China, headed straight for the
Golden Chersonesus. If he persisted, he would cross the Indian Ocean and
reach the Red Sea, whence he could complete his journey to Europe
overland by way of Palestine; or he could steer southward along the
African coast and around that continent, and so reach home by
circumnavigating the globe.

These fancies appear to have been shared by his companions, among whom
were several accomplished navigators and geographers. The delusions were
of course largely due to the erroneous estimate of the size of the
globe, which made its circumference too little by some thousands of
miles. But his companions could not be persuaded to approve his scheme
of going on to circumnavigate the globe. The glamor of that vision did
not blind their eyes to the worn and dilapidated condition of the ships,
the lack of supplies, and the weariness of the crews. They were in no
condition, they insisted, to proceed further through unknown regions. It
was already satisfactorily demonstrated, they held, that they had
reached the Asian coast. The part of prudence was to turn back to
Isabella, if not to Spain, and refit their vessels for another and
longer voyage.

These counsels finally prevailed upon Columbus himself, at the time when
his flotilla lay at anchor in the Bay of Cortez, near the western
extremity of Cuba. He was indeed so near that extremity that a day or
two more of sailing would have brought him to Cape San Antonio and would
have shown him that Cuba was an island. Or from the top of some tall
tree, or even from the mast head, he might have looked across the lakes
and lowlands of that region and seen the waters of Guadiana Bay, on the
north side of the island. But this was not to be. Instead, he required
every member of his company, from sailing master to cabin boy, to swear
to and sign a formal declaration to the effect that the land which they
had discovered and explored was a part of the Indies and of the Asian
continent. Then, on June 13, he turned his course toward the southeast,
only to enter another archipelago, the San Felipe and Indian keys.
Beyond lay a large land, with mountains, to which he gave the name of
Evangelista. It was, of course, the Isle of Pines, which he reached