and examined the admirals commission.
They returned to the shore, and shortly after, the governor sent back the
boat and Spanish seamen; saying he would have given any thing to have
taken the admiral, whom he had been ordered to seize by the king of
Portugal. Having recovered his men, and the wind being now fair for Spain,
the admiral set sail on an easterly course. On Saturday the 2d of March a
new storm arose, so that the ship drove under bare poles till four o'clock
on Monday, without hope of escaping. At that time, it pleased GOD that our
mariners discovered the Cape of Cintra, usually called the Rock of Lisbon;
and to avoid the tempest, the admiral resolved to put into the harbour,
being unable to come to anchor at _Cascaes_. He gave GOD thanks for his
deliverance from danger, and all men wondered how he had escaped, having
never witnessed so violent a tempest.

[1] The actual difference of longitude, between Ferro in 17 deg. 45' 50", and
the eastern side of Guanahani in 75 deg. 40', both west, is 57 deg. 54' 11" or
almost 58 degrees; which at 17-1/2 Spanish leagues to the degree, the
computation previously established by our present author, would extend
to 1015 leagues.--E.

[2] Some error has crept into the text, easily corrected. Columbus took
his departure from Gomera on Thursday the 6th September, and landed on
Guanahani on Friday the 12th October, both 1492. The time, therefore,
which was employed in this first passage across the Atlantic, not
including the 12th, because the land was observed in the night before,
was exactly 36 days. Had Columbus held a direct course west from
Gomera, in latitude 27 deg. 47' N. he would have fallen in with one of the
desert sandy islands on the coast of Florida, near a place now called
Hummock, or might have been wrecked on the _Montanilla_ reef, at the
north end of the Bahama banks: his deflection therefore, to the S.W.
on the 7th October, was fortunate for the success of his great
expedition.--E.

[3] How infinitely better it had been for Columbus, and his precursors the
Portuguese, to have retained the native names, where these could be
learnt; or, otherwise, to have imposed single significant new names
like the Norwegian navigators of the ninth century, instead of these
clumsy long winded superstitious appellations. This island of St
Mary of the Conception seems to have been what is now ca