Madeira was, therefore, his first stop, and from thence he despatched five or six ships loaded with provisions directly to Hispaniola, only keeping for himself one ship with decks and two merchant caravels.  He laid his course due south and reached the equinoctial line, which he purposed to follow directly to the west, making new discoveries and leaving Hispaniola to the north on his starboard side.  The thirteen islands of the Hesperides lie in the track of this voyage.  They belong to the Portuguese, and all, save one, are inhabited.  They are called the Cape Verde islands, and are distant only a day’s sail from the western part of Ethiopia.  To one of these islands the Portuguese have given the name of Bona Vista[2]; and each year numerous lepers are cured of their malady by eating the turtles of this island.

[Note 1:  The date was May 30, 1498, and the number of ships under his command was six, instead of eight.  Much delay had occurred in fitting out the fleet for the voyage, owing to the poor management of the royal functionaries, especially the Bishop of Burgos, whose enmity towards Columbus was from thenceforward relentless.]

[Note 2:  Properly Boavista.  A leper colony had been established here by the Portuguese.]

The climate being very bad, the Admiral quickly left the archipelago behind, and sailed 480 miles towards the west-south-west.  He reports that the dead calms and the fierce heat of the June sun caused such sufferings that his ships almost took fire.  The hoops of his water barrels burst, and the water leaked out.  His men found this heat intolerable.  The pole star was then at an elevation of five degrees.  Of the eight days during which they endured these sufferings only the first was clear; the others being cloudy and rainy, but not on that account less oppressive.  More than once, indeed, did he repent having taken this course.  After eight days of these miseries a favourable wind rose from the south-west, by which the Admiral profited to sail directly west, and under this parallel he observed new stars in the heavens, and experienced a more agreeable temperature.  In fact, all his men agree in saying that after three days’ sailing in that direction, the air was much cooler.  The Admiral affirms that, while he was in the region of dead calms and torrid heat, the ship always mounted the back of the sea, just as when climbing a high mountain one seems to advance towards the sky, and yet, nevertheless, he had seen no land on the horizon.  Finally, on the eve of the calends of July, a watcher announced with a joyful cry, from the crow’s nest, that he saw three lofty mountains.[3] He exhorted his companions to keep up their courage.  The men were, indeed, much depressed, not merely because they had been scorched by the sun, but because the water-supply was short.  The barrels had been sprung by the extreme heat, and lost the water through the cracks.  Full of rejoicing they advanced, but as they were about to touch land they perceived that this was impossible, because the sea was dotted with reefs, although in the neighbourhood they descried a harbour which seemed a spacious one.  From their ships the Spaniards could see that the country was inhabited and well cultivated; for they saw well-ordered gardens and shady orchards, while the sweet odours, exhaled by plants and trees bathed in the morning dew, reached their nostrils.