The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Classics) by Christopher Columbus

Author:Christopher Columbus
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780141920429
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2004-02-05T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 56

The Admiral returns from Jamaica and follows

the coast of Cuba in the belief that it is

the mainland

ON leaving the island of Jamaica, on Wednesday, 14 May, the Admiral reached a cape on the coast of Cuba which he named Santa Cruz. As he followed the coast he was overtaken by a heavy thunderstorm with terrible lightning which put him in great danger. His difficulties were increased by the many shallows and narrow channels which he found, and he was compelled to seek safety from these two dangers which demanded opposite remedies. To protect himself from the storm he should have lowered the sails; to get out of the shallows he had to keep them spread. Indeed, if his difficulties had continued for eight or ten leagues he would never have escaped.

But the worst thing of all was that the further he sailed along this coast to the north and north-east the more low islets they found. Though they saw large trees on some, the rest were sandbanks which scarcely rose above water level. These islets were about a league round, some larger and some smaller. But in actual fact, the nearer they came to Cuba the higher and more beautiful these islets were. Since it would have been useless and difficult to give a name to each one, the Admiral called them collectively El Jardin de la Reina. But if they saw many islands that day, they saw even more on the next and they were on the whole bigger than those they had sighted before. They lay not only to the north-east, but also to the north-west and to the south-west. That day they sighted as many as 160 of these islets, which were divided by deep channels through which the ships sailed.

On some of these islands they saw cranes of the size and kind of those of Spain but scarlet in colour. On others they saw a great number of turtles and turtle eggs which are like hen’s eggs, though their shells are very hard. The turtles lay these eggs in holes which they make in the sand. These they cover and leave until the heat of the sun hatches the young turtles, which grow with time to the size of a buckler and some to the size of a large shield. They also saw on these islands crows and cranes like those of Spain; also goosanders and great numbers of small birds, which sang most sweetly, and the air that blew from the land was so soft that they seemed to be in a rose garden full of the most delightful scents in the world. Nevertheless as we have said navigation was extremely dangerous, for the channels were so many that it took them a long time to find their way out.

In one of these channels they saw a canoe, with Indian fishermen who remained calm and unperturbed, motionlessly awaiting the boat’s approach, and when it came close they signed to it to wait a little until they had finished their fishing.

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