untutored crowd of wild, frightened men around him, with mocking hopes,
not knowing what each day would bring to him, on went Columbus. At last
came the 11th of October, and with it indubitable signs of land. The diary
mentions their finding on that day a table-board and a carved stick, the
carving apparently wrought by some iron instrument. Moreover, the men in
one of the vessels saw a branch of a haw tree with fruit on it.


LIGHT ON SHORE.

Now, indeed, they must be close to land. The sun went down upon the same
weary round of waters which for so long a time their eyes had ached to see
beyond, when, at ten o'clock, Columbus, standing on the poop of his
vessel, saw a light, and called to him, privately, Pedro Gutierrez, a
groom of the king's chamber, who saw it also. Then they called Rodrigo
Sanchez, who had been sent by their highnesses as overlooker. I imagine
him to have been a cold and cautious man, of the kind that are sent by
jealous states to accompany and curb great generals, and who are not
usually much loved by them. Sanchez did not see the light at first,
because, as Columbus says, he did not stand in the place where it could be
seen; but at last even he sees it, and it may now be considered to have
been seen officially. "It appeared like a candle that went up and down,
and Don Christopher did not doubt that it was true light, and that it was
on land; and so it proved, as it came from people passing with lights from
one cottage to another."


THE PROMISED PENSION.

Their highnesses had promised a pension of ten thousand maravedis to the