Indeed Columbus was seeing yellow at this point in his career. The word
"gold" is scattered throughout every page of his journal; he can
understand nothing that the natives say to him except that there is a
great quantity of gold somewhere about. He is surrounded by natives
pressing presents upon him, protesting their homage, and assuring him (so
he thinks) that there are any amount of gold mines; and no wonder that
the yellow light blinds his eyes and confounds his senses, and that
sometimes, even when the sun has gone down and the natives have retired
to their villages and he sits alone in the seclusion of his cabin, the
glittering motes still dance before his eyes and he becomes mad, maudlin,
ecstatic . . . . The light flickers in the lamp as the ship swings a
little on the quiet tide and a night breeze steals through the cabin
door; the sound of voices ashore sounds dimly across the water; the brain
of the Admiral, overfilled with wonders and promises and hopes, sends its
message to the trembling hand that holds the pen, and the incoherent
words stream out on the ink. "May our Lord in His mercy direct me until
I find this gold, I say this Mine, because I have many people here who
say that they know it."

On Christmas Eve a serious misfortune befell Columbus. What with looking
for gold, and trying to understand the people who talked about it, and
looking after his ships, and writing up his journal, he had had
practically no sleep for two days and a night; and at eleven o'clock on
the 24th of December, the night being fine and his ship sailing along the
coast with a light land breeze, he decided to lie down to get some sleep.
There were no difficulties in navigation to be feared, because the ship's
boats had been rowed the day before a distance of about ten miles ahead
on the course which they were then steering and had seen that there was
open water all the way. The wind fell calm; and the man at the helm,
having nothing to do, and feeling sleepy, called a ship's boy to him,