t
supported. Captain Fox maintains that the true Guanahani was the little
island now known as Samana or Atwood's Cay.[519] The problem well
illustrates the difficulty in identifying any route from even a good
description of landmarks, without the help of persistent proper names,
especially after the lapse of time has somewhat altered the landmarks.
From this point of view it is a very interesting problem and has its
lessons for us; otherwise it is of no importance.

[Footnote 518: This is a common notion among barbarians. "The
Polynesians imagine that the sky descends at the horizon and
encloses the earth. Hence they call foreigners _papalangi_, or
'heaven-bursters,' as having broken in from another world
outside." Max Mueller, _Chips from a German Workshop_, vol. ii.
p. 268.]

[Footnote 519: "An Attempt to solve the Problem of the First
Landing Place of Columbus in the New World," in _United States
Coast and Geodetic Survey--Report for 1880--Appendix 18_,
Washington, 1882.]

[Sidenote: Groping for Cipango and the route to Quinsay.]

A cruise of ten days among the Bahamas, with visits to four of the
islands, satisfied Columbus that he was in the ocean just east of
Cathay, for Marco Polo had described it as studded with thousands of
spice-bearing islands, and the Catalan map shows that some of these were
supposed to be inhabited by naked savages. To be sure, he could not find
any spices or valuable drugs, but the air was full of fragrance and the
trees and herbs were strange in aspect and might mean anything; so for a
while he was ready to take the spices on trust. Upon inquiries about
gold the natives always pointed to the south, apparently meaning
Cipango; and in that direction Columbus steered on the 25th of October,
intending to stay in that wealthy island long enough to obtain all
needful information concerning its arts and commerce. Thence a sail of
less than ten days would bring him to the Chinese coast, along which he
might comfortably cruise northwesterly as far as Quinsay and deliver to
the Great Khan a friendly letter with which Ferdinand and Isabella had
provided him. Alas, poor Columbus--unconscious prince of
discoverers--groping here in Cuban waters for the way to a city on the
other side of the globe and to a sovereign whose race had more than a
century since been driven from the throne and expelled from the very