Polo Arctico ad Polum antarcticum,
sive terrae firmae, Insulae inventae et inveniendae sint versus aliam
quamcumque partem quae linea distet a qualibet insularum quae vulgariter
appellantur de los Azores el Capo Verde, centum leucis versus
occidentem et meridiem ut praefertur pro mercibus habendis, vel
quavis alia de causa accedere praesumant, absque vestra et haeredum
et subcesorum vestrorum praedictorum licentia spetiali_.... By the
agreement signed at Tordesillas, the distance was increased by common
consent between Spain and Portugal, not as Martyr says, to 300, but to
370 leagues.]

Leaving Hispaniola,[10] the Admiral sailed with three vessels in the
direction of the land he had taken for an island on his first voyage,
and had named Juana. He arrived, after a brief voyage, and named the
first coast he touched Alpha and Omega, because he thought that there
our East ended when the sun set in that island, and our West began
when the sun rose. It is indeed proven that on the west side India
begins beyond the Ganges, and ends on the east side. It is not without
cause that cosmographers have left the boundaries of Ganges India
undetermined.[11] There are not wanting those among them who think
that the coasts of Spain do not lie very distant from the shores of
India.

[Note 10: He left Hispaniola on April 24th.]

[Note 11: This was the general opinion of cosmographers and
navigators at that period; contemporary maps and globes show the
Asiatic continent in the place actually occupied by Florida and
Mexico. See map of Ptolemeus de Ruysch, _Universalior coquiti orbis
tabula ex recentibus confecta observationibus_, Rome, 1508.]

The natives called this country Cuba.[12] Within sight of it, the
Admiral discovered at the extremity of Hispaniola a very commodious
harbour formed by a bend in the island. He called this harbour, which
is barely twenty leagues distant from Cuba, San Nicholas.

[Note 12: Always deeming Cuba to be an extension of Asia, Columbus
was anxious to complete his reconnaissance, and then to proceed to
India and Cathay.]

Columbus covered this distance, and desiring to skirt the south coast
of Cuba, he laid his course to the west; the farther he advanced the
more extensive did the coast become, but bending towards the south, he
first discovered, to the left of Cuba, an island called by the natives
Jamaica,[13] of which he reports that it is longer and broader
than Sicily. It is composed of one sole mo