to continue the voyage that night, so he lay to, and at
earliest daybreak of Sunday morning, leaving behind him the islet
fittingly called Caya Santo Domingo, completed his course to the land
which he fondly but vainly hailed as the much-sought Cipango.

The coast at the point at which he reached it seemed specially designed
by nature for his favorable and auspicious reception. There lay before
him what seemed the estuary of a large and beautiful river, free from
rocks or other impediments, and with a very gentle current. It had an
ample depth of water for his vessels, and was sufficiently broad, even
at a considerable distance inland, for them to beat about in. It was
encircled by lofty and picturesque hills, the aspect of which reminded
him of the "Pena de los Enamorados" near Granada, in Spain; and upon the
summit of one of them was what he described as another little hill,
shaped like a graceful mosque. Enchanted with the vision, and gratified
beyond expression at what he confidently assumed to be the reaching of
his goal and the vindication of his enterprise, he gave to the spot a
repetition of the name which he had devoutly bestowed upon his first
landfall, calling the port San Salvador.

The identity of this spot has been much questioned and disputed; perhaps
even more than that of Columbus's first landing in the Bahamas; and it
is not to be regarded as entirely certain. Washington Irving pretty
confidently placed it at Caravelas Grandes, far to the west of Nuevitas
del Principe, while others insist that it was at Nuevitas itself.
Navarrete, on the other hand, with his theory that the first landfall
was at Grand Turk Island, held that Cuba was reached at Nipe Bay, east
of Holguin; while Las Casas and Herrera insisted that the port of San
Salvador was at Baracoa, near Cape Maysi, at the extreme eastern end of
the island. Midway between the extremes, that most scholarly and
judicious of geographers, Sir Clements Markham, selected the natural
harbor of Naranjo, a little to the west of Punta Lucrecia and Punta
Mulas. Other historians and geographers, after painstaking research,
declare that they do not believe the place can be determined.

With this, in the ultimate analysis, I would agree. It is probably
impossible to establish indisputably the identity of the place. Yet it
does seem to me that the arguments in favor of Naranjo, as selected by
Markham, are so strong as to be all but entirely convincing, and that i