ll ships, with
compass and astrolabe for determining direction and altitude, but no log
for the dead reckoning, left Palos for the Canaries. It was not with
adverse winds or a rough sea that the admiral had to contend, but with a
superstitious crew often moved to mutiny,--terrified by the strange
variation of the needle, questioning whether the steady trade winds that
bore them on would ever permit them to return, certain that the Sargasso
Sea would prove that impenetrable marsh of which they had heard. With
unfailing resourcefulness, with patience and tact, with the compelling
force of a masterful character, the great commander vanquished fear and
superstition, never doubting that since "he had come to go to the Indies
he would keep on till he found them by the help of God."

It was on the 11th day of October, seventy days out from Spain, and none
too soon, that land was sighted; and on the following morning Columbus,
bearing the cross of the Church on the banner of Castile, set foot on
one of the minor Bahamas, the present Watling's Island. For two months
and a half he cruised in these waters, seeking gold and spices, and the
evidence of great cities, "still resolved to go to the mainland and the
City of Quinsay, and to deliver the letters of your Highness to the
Grand Can, requesting a reply and returning with it." He did not find
Quinsay or the Grand Khan, but he discovered Santa Maria, and Hayti,
where the first Spanish colony in the New World was established, and
Cuba, which was taken to be the mainland. Resting in this belief, the
admiral set out for home, reaching Palos February 15, 1493. And it was
straightway reported in Europe that the Genoese captain had "found that
way never before known to the east."

The East, yet not the desired part of it,--not Cipango, or the city of
Quinsay, nor yet the rich Moluccas. These, however, Columbus never
doubted, would be easily found. Others were less sanguine. The Spanish
sovereigns seemed scarcely convinced that the islands of Columbus were
parts of Marco Polo's Indies; while King John suspected that they were
really within the southern Guinea waters belonging to Portugal.
Therefore the Portuguese King hastened to secure, by papal bulls and
the Treaty of Tordesillas with Spain in 1494, the famous Demarcation
Line which reserved to Portugal, for exploration and discovery, the
regions lying east, and to Spain the regions lying west, of a meridian
three hundred and seventy