y were still in sight of
land, the Pinta came in sight. Martin Pinzon came on board the Nina and
offered excuses for his absence. Columbus was not really satisfied with
them, but he affected to be, as this was no moment for a quarrel. He
believed that Pinzon had left him, that, in the Pinta, he might be alone
when he discovered the rich gold-bearing island of Babeque or Baneque.
Although the determination was made to return, another week was spent in
slow coasting, or in waiting for wind. It brought frequent opportunities
for meeting the natives, in one of which they showed a desire to take
some of their visitors captive. This would only have been a return for a
capture made by Pinzon of several of their number, whom Columbus, on
his meeting Pinzon, had freed. In this encounter two of the Indians were
wounded, one by a sword, one by an arrow. It would seem that he did not
show them the power of firearms.

This was in the Bay of Samana, which Columbus called "The Bay of
Arrows," from the skirmish or quarrel which took place there. They then
sailed sixty-four miles cast, a quarter northeast, and thought they saw
the land of the Caribs, which he was seeking. But here, at length, his
authority over his crew failed. The men were eager to go home;--did not,
perhaps, like the idea of fight with the man-eating Caribs. There was
a good western wind, and on the evening of the sixteenth of January
Columbus gave way and they bore away for home.

Columbus had satisfied himself in this week that there were many islands
east of him which he had not hit upon, and that to the easternmost of
these, from the Canaries, the distance would prove not more than four
hundred leagues. In this supposition he was wholly wrong, though a chain
of islands does extend to the southeast.

He seems to have observed the singular regularity by which the trade
winds bore him steadily westward as he came over. He had no wish to
visit the Canary Islands again, and with more wisdom than could have
been expected, from his slight knowledge of the Atlantic winds, he bore
north. Until the fourteenth of February the voyage was prosperous and
uneventful. One day the captive Indians amused the sailors by swimming.
There is frequent mention of the green growth of the Sargasso sea. But
on the fourteenth all this changed. The simple journal thus describes
the terrible tempest which endangered the two vessels, and seemed, at
the moment, to cut off the hope of their ret