1492. November 14.
The ships now steered east-by-south, passing mountainous lands, which on November 14 he tried to approach. After a while he discovered a harbor, which he could enter, and found it filled with lofty wooded islands, some pointed and some flat at the top. He was quite sure he had now got among the islands which are made to swarm on the Asiatic coast in the early accounts and maps. He now speaks of his practice in all his landings to set up and leave a cross. He observed, also, a promontory in the bay fit for a fortress, and caught a strange fish resembling a hog. He was at this time embayed in the King's Garden, as the archipelago is called.
Pinzon deserts.
1492. November 23.
Shortly after this, when they had been baffled in their courses, Martin Alonso Pinzon, incited, as the record says, by his cupidity to find the stores of gold to which some of his Indian captives had directed him, disregarded the Admiral's signals, and sailed away in the "Pinta." The flagship kept a light for him all night, at the mast-head; but in the morning the caravel was out of sight. The Admiral takes occasion in his journal to remark that this was not the first act of Pinzon's insubordination. On Friday, November 23, the vessels approached a headland, which the Indians called Bohio.
1492. November 24.
The prisoners here began to manifest fear, for it was a spot where the one-eyed people and the cannibals dwelt; but on Saturday, November 24, the ships were forced back into the gulf with the many islands, where Columbus found a desirable roadstead, which he had not before discovered.
1492. November 25.
On Sunday, exploring in a boat, he found in a stream "certain stones which shone with spots of a golden hue; and recollecting that gold was found in the river Tagus near the sea, he entertained no doubt that this was the metal, and directed that a collection of the stones should be made to carry to the King and Queen." It becomes noticeable, as Columbus goes on, that every new place surpasses all others; the atmosphere is better; the trees are more marvelous. He now found pines fit for masts, and secured some for the "Nina."