Blessed sight! What new courage it put into the tired rowers; how eager
they were to make the rock by sunrise so as to lie in its shade all that
August day of 1503, instead of blistering under the torrid sun in an
open boat. Surely, if ever men deserved to lie all day in the shade, it
was these brave fellows who were trying to save Christopher Columbus.

From this point Mendez went on with his six rowers till he found the
governor; but before going into that matter, let me tell you how proud,
and justly proud, Diego Mendez was all his life of this canoe trip. He
lived to be an old man (in the city of Valladolid), and when he felt
himself nearing the end, he asked his relatives to mark his grave by a
tombstone, "in the center of which let a canoe be carved (which is a
piece of wood hollowed out in which the Indians navigate), because in
such a boat I navigated some three hundred leagues; and let some letters
be carved above it saying _canoa_."

Quite right of you, Diego Mendez, to wish posterity to know of your
plucky voyage. We hope your relatives gave you the coveted tombstone;
and we hope, also, that they carved, on its reverse side, that of all
the men who ever served Don Cristobal Colon, you were the most loyal and
the most valiant.

The Admiral, in writing an account of what happened on the Jamaica beach
while Mendez was seeking aid, says:--

"At the request of the king's treasurer, I took two brothers with me to
the Indies--one as captain, the other as auditor. Both were without any
capacity for their work, yet became more and more vain. I forgave them
many incivilities. They rebelled openly on Jamaica, at which I was as
much astonished as if the sun should go black."