world, in which we are more inclined than to the things which can
save us." These are his words.

Truly this man had a good Christian purpose and was very contented with
his own estate and desired in a moderate degree to maintain himself in
it, and to rest from such sore travail, which he fully merited; yet the
result of his sweat and toil was to impose a greater burden on the
Sovereigns, and I do not know what greater was necessary than had already
fallen to them, and even he had imposed obligations on them, except that
he kept seeing that little importance was made of his distinguished
services that he had performed, and that all at once the estimation of
these Indies which was held at first was declining and coming to naught,
through those that had the ears of the Sovereigns, so that he feared each
day greater disfavors and that the Sovereigns might give up the whole
business and thus his sweat and travail be entirely lost.

Having determined, then, to come as quickly as he could to this island,
Wednesday, August 15, which was the day of the Assumption of Our Lady,
after the rising of the sun, he ordered the anchors weighed from where he
was anchored, which must have been within the small gulf which Margarita
and the other islands make with the mainland (and he must have been near
Margarita as we said above, ch. 139), and sailed on the way to this
island; and, pursuing his way, he saw very clearly Margarita and the
little islands which were there, and also, the farther away he went, he
discovered more high land of the continent. And he went that day from
sunrise to sunset 63 leagues, because of the great currents which
supplemented the wind....[362-1]

Let us return to the voyage of the Admiral, whom we left started from the
neighborhood of the island of Margarita, and he went that day, Wednesday,
63 leagues from sun to sun, as they say. The next day, Thursday, August
16, he navigated to the north-west, quarter of the north,[363-1] 26
leagues, with the sea calm, "thanks be to God," as he always said. He
tells here a wonderful thing, that when he left the Canaries for this
Espanola, having gone 300 leagues to the west, then the needles declined
to the north-west[363-2] one quarter, and the North Star did not rise but
5 degrees, and now in this voyage it has not declined to the
north-west[363-2] until last night, when it declined more than a quarter
and a half, and some needles declined a half wind which are two
qua