ape Mayzi, which Columbus on his first voyage
had named Cape Alpha and Omega as being the easternmost point on the
Chinese coast. He believed that if he were to sail to the right of this
cape he should have the continent on his port side for a thousand miles
and more, as far as Quinsay and Cambaluc (Peking). If he had sailed
in this direction and had succeeded in keeping to the east of Florida,
he would have kept a continent on his port side, and a thousand miles
would have taken him a long way toward that Vinland which our
Scandinavian friends would fondly have us believe was his secret
guiding-star, and the geographical position of which they suppose him to
have known with such astounding accuracy. But on this as on other
occasions, if the Admiral had ever received any information about
Vinland, it must be owned that he treated it very cavalierly, for he
chose the course to the left of Cape Mayzi. His decision is intelligible
if we bear in mind that he had not yet circumnavigated Hayti and was not
yet cured of his belief that its northern shore was the shore of the
great Cipango. At the same time he had seen enough on his first voyage
to convince him that the relative positions of Cipango and the mainland
of Cathay were not correctly laid down upon the Toscanelli map. He had
already inspected two or three hundred miles of the coast to the right
of Cape Mayzi without finding traces of civilization; and whenever
inquiries were made about gold or powerful kingdoms the natives
invariably pointed to the south or southwest. Columbus, therefore,
decided to try his luck in this direction. He passed to the left of Cape
Mayzi and followed the southern coast of Cuba.

[Sidenote: Discovery of Jamaica.]

By the 3d of May the natives were pointing so persistently to the south
and off to sea that he changed his course in that direction and soon
came upon the northern coast of the island which we still know by its
native name Jamaica. Here he found Indians more intelligent and more
warlike than any he had as yet seen. He was especially struck with the
elegance of their canoes, some of them nearly a hundred feet in length,
carved and hollowed from the trunks of tall trees. We may already
observe that different tribes of Indians comported themselves very
differently at the first sight of white men. While the natives of some
of the islands prostrated themselves in adoration of these
sky-creatures, or behaved with a timorous politeness