How proud the Admiral must have
felt when he wrote in his journal, "It was as if Fernando had been at
sea eighty years!"
At last they rounded a point where better weather greeted them, and in
thankfulness Columbus called it Cape Gracias a Dios (Thanks to God). But
straightway came another blow. On the very first day when they could
catch their breath and cease struggling against wind and current and
rain, their spirits were again dashed. A rowboat went near the mouth of
a river to take on fresh water, and the river came out with a gush,
upset the boat, and drowned the men in it. So our sick Admiral, who was
drawing a map of the coast, and had just finished writing "Thanks to
God," marks down the rushing river and names it "Rio de Desastre" (River
of Disaster).
Just below Gracias Cape the current divided into two, one part flowing
west, the other south; this latter was followed. Sailing down the
Mosquito Coast they came, toward the end of September, to a pleasant
spot which Columbus called "The Garden," or El Jardin (pronounced Khar-
deen'), and where the natives appeared to be more intelligent than any
he had yet seen. Continuing south, he came to Caribaro Bay, where the
people wore many flat ornaments of beaten gold. As if they could detect,
from afar, the gold lust in the European eye, the poor creatures
brandished their weapons to keep the strange-looking visitors from
landing; but it was of no avail.
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