Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/645

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Columbus, in six days, reached the great Canary Island, where he anchored, and remained for a day to repair a leaky vessel of his flotilla, after which they set sail for Gomera, which they were "four or five days" in reaching, and thence, after another day's rest, during which they took in a fresh supply of wood, beef, and other provisions and replenished their stock of water, they reached in twenty days the island of Ferro; thence with a fair wind, and fine weather, they were other twenty days in sighting land, which "should have been done in fourteen or fifteen days, if the ship Capitana had been as good a sailer as the other vessels." This land, which they made on the evening of Saturday, the 2nd of November, proved to be a lofty island, to which Columbus gave the name of Dominica, and "offered fervent prayers to heaven" for their prosperous voyage. The island appeared to be wholly uninhabited.

Proceeding to the island of Guadeloupe, they visited a village near the shore; but the inhabitants at their approach fled in great trepidation, leaving some of their children, around whose necks and arms the Spaniards placed hawks'-bells, and other trinkets, soothing them at the same time with their caresses, as the most sure means of winning the confidence of their parents. Here provisions were found in abundance, besides parrots of the most variegated plumage, as large as household fowls, and many geese domesticated like those of Europe.

After cruising among the other islands of the group of the Antilles, the expedition anchored on the 14th of November off an island, to which Columbus gave the name of Santa Cruz, which, like all the