if any one should desire a proof of the utterly misleading nature of most
of Columbus's writings about himself, let him know that a few months
later he solemnly wrote to the Sovereigns concerning this very place that
"there is not in the world a country whose inhabitants are more timid;
and the whole place is capable of being easily put into a state of
defence. Your people that may come here, if they should wish to become
masters of the products of other lands, will have to take them by force
or retire empty-handed. In this country they will simply have to trust
their persons in the hands of the savages." The facts being that the
inhabitants were extremely fierce and warlike and irreconcilably hostile;
that the river was a trap out of which in the dry season there was no
escape, and the harbour outside a mere shelterless lee shore; that it
would require an army and an armada to hold the place against the
natives, and that any one who trusted himself in their hands would
share the fate of the unhappy Diego Tristan. One may choose between
believing that the Admiral's memory had entirely failed him (although he
had not been backward in making a minute record, of all his sufferings)
or that he was craftily attempting to deceive the Sovereigns. My own
belief is that he was neither trying to deceive anybody nor that he had
forgotten anything, but that he was simply incapable of uttering the bare
truth when he had a pen in his hand.


From their position on the coast of Veragua Espanola bore almost due
north; but Columbus was too good a seaman to attempt to make the island
by sailing straight for it. He knew that the steady west-going current
would set him far down on his course, and he therefore decided to work up
the coast a long way to the eastward before standing across for Espanola.
The crew grumbled very much at this proceeding, which they did not
understand; in fact they argued from it that the Admiral was making