great numbers of people were lost, believing in idolatry and doctrines of perdition; therefore your highnesses, as catholic Christians and sovereigns, who love and promote the holy Christian religion, and are enemies of the sect of Mahomet, and of all idolatry and heresy, determined to send me, Christopher Columbus, (Cristóbal Colon,) to the previously mentioned countries of India, to see the said sovereigns, people, and territories, and to learn their disposition and the proper way of converting them to our holy religion; and furthermore, directed that I should not go by land to the East, as is customary, but by a westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that any one has gone. Therefore, after having expelled the Jews from your dominions, your highnesses, in the same month of January, ordered me to proceed with a sufficient armament to the said regions of India, and for that purpose granted me great favors and ennobled me, that thereafter I might call myself Don and be high admiral (almirante mayor) of the sea, and perpetual viceroy and governor of all the islands and continent which I might discover and acquire, or which may hereafter be discovered and acquired in the ocean; and that this title should be inherited by my eldest son, and thus descend from generation to generation forever. Thereupon I left the city of Granada, on Saturday, the twelfth day of May, 1492, and proceeded to Palos, a seaport, where I armed three vessels very fit for such an expedition, and having provided myself with an abundance of stores and seamen, I set sail from this port on Friday, the third of August, half an hour before sunrise, and steered for the Canary Islands of your highnesses, which are in the said ocean, thence to take

my departure and proceed till I arrived at the Indies, and perform the embassy of your highnesses to the sovereigns there, and discharge the orders given. Consequently, I have determined to write out daily a minute account of the voyage respecting what I do and see, and the passage, as hereafter will appear. Moreover, sovereign princes, besides recording each night my progress during the day and the run made during the night, I intend to make a new nautical chart (carta nueva de navegar), in which I shall delineate all the sea and the lands of the Ocean in their proper places under their wind; and, moreover, I shall compose a book and represent the whole like a picture by latitude, from the equator, and by longitude, from the West, wherefore it will cause me to abstain from sleep and to make many experiments in navigation, for these things will require no little labor." :

The vessels of the fleet were the ship (la nao), Santa Maria, commanded by Columbus, and two caravels, (carabelas,) La Pinta, commanded by Martin Alonso Pinzon, and La Nina, by Vicente Yañes Pinzon, his brother, both being natives and seamen of Palos. "Being furnished with all necessaries and ninety men,' says Ferdinand Columbus," they set sail on the third of

"Tengo propósito de hacer carta nueva de navegar, en la cual situaré toda la mar y tierras del mar Océano en sus propios lugares debajo su viento; y mas componer un libro, y poner todo por el semejante por pintura, por latitud del equinocial y longitud del Occidente, y sobre todo cumple mucho que yo olvide el sueño y tiente mucho el navegar porque asi cumple, las cuales serán gran trabajo.”— Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. i. pp. 1–3.

'Columbus, speaking of the progress of the ship, on the twenty-fourth of October, remarks: “I carried all the sail of the ship, the mainsail, and two bonnets, the foresail, and the spritsail, and the mizzen and the main-top-sail. Llevaba todas mis velas de la nao, maestra, y dos bonetas, y trinquete, y cebadera, y mezana, y vela de gavia." A bonnet was a sail placed beneath the mainsail in fine weather to increase the speed of a ship.

'On the pavement of the cathedral of Seville is inscribed: "Con tres galeras y yo personas," with three galleys and ninety persons.

August directly toward the Canaries, and from that time forward the admiral was very careful to keep an accurate journal of all that happened to him during the voyage, specifying the wind that blew, how far he sailed with it, the currents he found, and what he saw by the way, whether birds or fishes, or other things.

"The next day after the admiral's departure for the Canary Islands, it being Saturday, the fourth of August, the rudder of one of the caravels, of the one called La Pinta, broke loose, and the caravel being compelled to lie to, the admiral soon reached her side, but the wind blowing hard he could render no assitance, as commanders at sea are obliged to do to encourage those that are in distress. This he did more promptly, as he conceived that the unshipping of the rudder had been brought about by the contrivance of the master to avoid going on the voyage, as he had attempted to do before they set sail."

At the Canary Islands, Columbus altered the sails of the caravel La Nina, and made a new rudder for the Pinta. On Thursday morning, the sixth of September, the three vessels set sail from the island Gomera, of the Canary group, " and stood away to the west." On the following Sunday, at day-break, when the fleet was nine leagues west of the island of Ferro,' the sailors "lost sight of land, and many, fearing that it would be long before they should see it again, sighed and wept, but the admiral, after comforting them with large promises of land and of wealth, to raise their hopes and lessen their fears respecting the length of the voyage,

'Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo. cap. xvi, xvii.

The island of Ferro is the most westerly of the Canary group. The Canaries lie off the west coast of Africa, between 27° and 30° north latitude and 13° and 19° west longitude. The principal islands are: Teneriffe, Grand Canary, Palma, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Gomera, and Ferro. Through the last island the ancient geographers drew the first meridian of longitude.