Divine permission, from Spain to the Indies, under the command of
Christopher Columbus, Admiral of the Ocean, left Cadiz on the
twenty-fifth of September, of the year [1493, with seventeen ships well
equipped and with 1200 fighting men or a little less,][283-1] with wind
and weather favorable for the voyage. This weather lasted two days,
during which time we managed to make nearly fifty leagues; the weather
then changing, we made little or no progress for the next two days; it
pleased God, however, after this, to restore us fine weather, so that in
two days more we reached the Great Canary. Here we put into harbor, which
we were obliged to do, to repair one of the ships which made a great deal
of water; we remained all that day, and on the following set sail again,
but were several times becalmed, so that we were four or five days
before we reached Gomera. We had to remain at Gomera some days[284-1] to
lay in our stores of meat, wood, and as much water as we could stow,
preparatory to the long voyage which we expected to make without seeing
land: thus through the delay at these two ports, and being calmed one day
after leaving Gomera, we were nineteen or twenty days before we arrived
at the island of Ferro. After this we had, by the goodness of God, a
return of fine weather, more continuous than any fleet ever enjoyed
during so long a voyage, so that leaving Ferro on the thirteenth of
October, within twenty days we came in sight of land; and we should have
seen it in fourteen or fifteen days, if the ship _Capitana_[284-2] had
been as good a sailer as the other vessels; for many times the others had
to shorten sail, because they were leaving us much behind. During all
this time we had great good fortune, for throughout the voyage we
encountered no storm, with the exception of one on St. Simon's
eve,[284-3] which for four hours put us in considerable jeopardy.

On the first Sunday after All Saints, namely the third of November, about
dawn, a pilot of the flagship cried out, "The reward, I see the land!"

The joy of the people was so great, that it was wonderful to hear their
cries and exclamations of pleasure; and they had good reason to be
delighted; for they had become so wearied of bad living, and of working
the water out of the ships, that all sighed most anxiously for land. The
pilots of the fleet reckoned on that day, that between leaving Ferro and
first reaching land, we had made eight hundred leagues; others said s