"One of the ship boys on the largest ship, a native of Lepe, cried
'Fire!' 'Land!' Immediately a servant of Columbus replied, 'The Admiral
had said that already.' Soon after, Columbus said, 'I said so some time
ago, and that I saw that fire on the land.'" And so indeed it happened
that Thursday, at two hours after midnight, the Admiral called a
gentleman named Escobedos, officer of the wardrobe of the king, and told
him that he saw fire. And at the break of day, at the time Columbus
had predicted the day before, they saw from the largest ship the island
which the Indians call Guanahani to the north of them.

"And the first man to see the land, when day came, was Rodrigo of
Triana, on the eleventh day of October, 1492." Nothing is more certain
than that this was really on the twelfth.

The reward for first seeing land was eventually awarded to Columbus, and
it was regularly paid him through his life. It was the annual payment
of 10,000 maravedis. A maravedi was then a little less than six cents
of our currency. The annuity was, therefore, about six hundred dollars a
year.

The worth of a maravedi varied, from time to time, so that the
calculations of the value of any number of maravedis are very confusing.
Before the coin went out of use it was worth only half a cent.



CHAPTER IV. -- THE LANDING ON THE TWELFTH OF OCTOBER

--THE NATIVES AND THEIR NEIGHBORS--SEARCH FOR GOLD--CUBA
DISCOVERED--COLUMBUS COASTS ALONG ITS SHORES.