Columbus kept sailing on from one island to another. Each new island
he found would, he hoped, bring him nearer to Cathay and to the marble
temples and golden palaces and splendid cities he was looking for. But
the temples and palaces and cities did not appear. When the Admiral came
to the coast of Cuba he said: This, I know, is the mainland of Asia. So
he sent off Louis, the interpreter, with a letter to the "great Emperor
of Cathay." Louis was gone several days; but he found no emperor, no
palace, no city, no gold, no jewels, no spices, no Cathay--only frail
houses of bark and reeds, fields of corn and grain, with simple people
who could tell him nothing about Cathay or Cipango or the Indies.

So day after day Columbus kept on his search, sailing from island to
island, getting a little gold here and there, or some pearls and silver
and a lot of beautiful bird skins, feathers and trinkets.

Then Captain Alonso Pinzon, who was sailing in the Pinta, believed he
could do better than follow the Admiral's lead. I know, he said, if I
could go off on my own hook I could find plenty of gold and pearls, and
perhaps I could find Cathay. So one day he sailed away and Columbus did
not know what had become of him.

At last Columbus, sailing on and troubled at the way Captain Alonso
Pinzon had acted, came one day to the island of Hayti. If Cuba was
Cathay (or China), Hayti, he felt sure, must be Cipango (or Japan). So
he decided to sail into one of its harbors to spend Christmas Day. But
just before Christmas morning dawned, the helmsman of the Santa Maria,
thinking that everything was safe, gave the tiller into the hands of a
boy--perhaps it was little Pedro the cabin boy--and went to sleep. The
rest of the crew also were asleep. And the boy who, I suppose, felt