fleet, in order to punish Columbus for having sailed in the service of
Spain instead of Portugal. As the pursuers never were seen by the
Spanish ships, that story, too, may have been some islander's delusion;
but it made the crew believe that Columbus's undertaking must look
promising to the great navigating Portuguese nation, or they would not
be jealous of Spain's enterprise.

More than a month had now passed since Columbus had left Palos, and only
a hundred miles out from the African coast were accomplished! Was ever a
man subjected to more delays than our patient discoverer! And now, when
at last he was ready to start due west, a strong head sea prevailed for
two days and would not let them push forward. So that it was actually
not until September 8 that the voyage toward the "western lands" may be
said to have begun.

We have mentioned that Columbus kept a diary on this voyage. He was, in
fact, a prodigious writer, having left behind him when he died a vast
quantity of memoirs, letters, and even good verse; and besides these,
maps and charts in great numbers. No matter how trying the day had been,
with fractious crews and boisterous ocean, no matter how little sleep
the anxious commander had had the night before, no matter how much the
ill-smelling swinging lamp in his cabin rocked about, he never failed to
write in his journal.

This precious manuscript was long in the possession of Columbus's friend
Bartolome de las Casas, who borrowed it because he was writing a history
of Columbus and wished to get all the information, possible in the
navigator's own words.

Las Casas was a monk who spent his life in befriending the Indians. When