were equally said to abound there. They described it as a country of
commerce, with great fairs and sea-ports, in which ships arrived armed
with cannon. The people were warlike also, armed like the Spaniards with
swords, bucklers, cuirasses, and cross-bows, and they were mounted on
horses. Above all, Columbus understood from them that the sea continued
round to Ciguare, and that ten days beyond it was the Ganges.

These may have been vague and wandering rumors concerning the distant
kingdoms of Mexico and Peru, and many of the details may have been filled
up by the imagination of Columbus. They made, however, a strong impression
on his mind. He supposed that Ciguare must be some province belonging to
the Grand Khan, or some other Eastern potentate, and as the sea reached
it, he concluded it was on the opposite side of a peninsula: bearing the
same position with respect to Veragua that Fontarabia does with Tortosa in
Spain, or Pisa with Venice in Italy. By proceeding farther eastward,
therefore, he must soon arrive at a strait, like that of Gibraltar,
through which he could pass into another sea, and visit this country of
Ciguare, and, of course, arrive at the banks of the Ganges. He accounted
for the circumstance of his having arrived so near to that river, by the
idea which he had long entertained, that geographers were mistaken as to
the circumference of the globe; that it was smaller than was generally
imagined, and that a degree of the equinoctial line was but fifty-six
miles and two-thirds. [147]

With these ideas Columbus determined to press forward, leaving the rich
country of Veragua unexplored. Nothing could evince more clearly his
generous ambition, than hurrying in this brief manner along a coast where
wealth was to be gathered at every step, for the purpose of seeking a
strait which, however it might produce vast benefit to mankind, could
yield little else to himself than the glory of the discovery.