ain and a threatening of tempest; there was
a difference of opinion with Martin Alonso Pinzon about which way they
should go round the island: but the next day the weather cleared, and the
wind settled the direction of their course for them. Columbus, whose eye
never missed anything of interest to the sailor and navigator, notes thus
early a fact which appears in every book of sailing directions for the
Bahama Islands--that the water is so clear and limpid that the bottom can
be seen at a great depth; and that navigation is thus possible and even
safe among the rockstrewn coasts of the islands, when thus performed by
sight and with the sun behind the ship. He was also keenly alive to
natural charm and beauty in the new lands that he was visiting, and there
are unmistakable fragments of himself in the journal that speak
eloquently of his first impressions. "The singing of the little birds is
such that it appears a man would wish never to leave here, and the flocks
of parrots obscure the sun."

But life, even to the discoverer of a New World, does not consist of
wandering in the groves, and listening to the singing birds, and smelling
the flowers, and remembering the May nights of Andalusia. There was gold
to be found and the mainland of Cathay to be discovered, and a letter,
written by the sovereigns at his earnest request, to be delivered to the
Great Khan. The natives had told him of an island called Samoete to the
southward, which was said to contain a quantity of gold. He sailed
thither on the 19th, and called it Isabella; its modern name is Crooked
Island. He anchored here and found it to be but another step in the
ascending scale of his delight; it was greener and more beautiful than
any of the islands he had yet seen. He spent some time looking for the
gold, but could not find any; although he heard of the island of Cuba,
which he took to be the veritable Cipango. He weighed anchor on October
24th and sailed south-west, encountering some bad weather on the way; but
on Sunday the 28th he came up with the north coast of Cuba and entered
the mouth of a river which is the modern Nuevitas. To the island of Cuba
he gave the name of Juana in honour of the young prince to whom his son
Diego had been appointed a page.

If the other islands had seemed beautiful to him, Cuba seemed like heaven
itself. The mountains grandly rising in the interior, the noble rivers
and long sweeping plains, the headlands melting i