Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 2, 2025
There is nothing in the journal to indicate that the lagoon at Guanahani was aught but the flooding of the low grounds by excessive rains; and even if it was one communicating with the ocean, its absence now may be referred to the effect of those agencies which are working incessantly to reshape the soft structure of the Bahamas.
The Admiral determined to go to the river the Indians mentioned, and to send to the king the letter of the sovereigns. He meant to send with it a sailor who had been to Guinea, and some of the Guanahani Indians. He was encouraged, probably, by the name of Carni, in thinking that he was really near the Grand Khan.
The actual difference of longitude, between Ferro in 17° 45' 50", and the eastern side of Guanahani in 75° 40', both west, is 57° 54' 11" or almost 58 degrees; which at 17-1/2 Spanish leagues to the degree, the computation previously established by our present author, would extend to 1015 leagues. Some error has crept into the text, easily corrected.
A Pinzon could have navigated the fleet from Palos to Guanahani; but only a Columbus, only a man burning with belief is himself and in his quest, could have kept that superstitious crowd of loafers and malefactors and gaol-birds to their duties, and bent them to his will.
It is all, alas, inevitable; was inevitable from the moment that the keel of Columbus's boat grated upon the shingle of Guanahani. The greater must prey upon the less, the stronger must absorb and dominate the weaker; and the happy gardens of the Golden Cyclades must be spoiled and wasted for the pleasure and enrichment of a corrupting civilisation.
As the wind chopped round and he found himself on a lee-shore he did not stay there, but sailed again before night. Two of the unhappy prisoners from Guanahani at this point made good their escape by swimming to a large canoe which one of the natives of the new island had rowed out a circumstance which worried Columbus not a little; since he feared it would give him a bad name with the natives.
And beyond Yucatan richer still; oh, great riches, gold and clothing and we thought it from their contemptuous signs toward our booths and their fingers drawn in the air true houses and temples. Farther on farther on farther west! Forever that haunting, deluding cry the cry that had deluded since Guanahani that we called San Salvador.
Next night he stood to the N.W. and by N. and on the 8th of the same month came to anchor at the shoals of Babecua, near the Isola del Viejo, in lat. 22°-1/2 N. Next day he anchored at one of the Bahama or Lucayos islands called Caycos, and then at another called Yaguna, in lat. 24° N. On the 11th he came to the island of Amaguayo, and then passed Manegua, in lat 24°-1/2 N. He came to Guanahani, in lat. 25-1/2 N. on the 14th, where he refitted the ships before crossing the bay to windward of the Lucayos.
It is much larger than any of the other islands, and could hardly have been called by Columbus in any alternative way a "small" island, while it does not answer Columbus's description of being level, having on it an eminence of four hundred feet, and no interior lagoon, as his Guanahani demands.
The second island arrived at by Ponce de Leon, in his northwestern course, was one of the Caycos; the first one, then, called El Viejo, must have been Turk's Island, which lies S.E. of the Caycos. The third island they came to was probably Mariguana; the fourth, Crooked Island; and the fifth, Isla Larga. Lastly they came to Guanahani, the San Salvador of Columbus.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking