Columbus said that Guanahani had abundance of water and a very large lagoon in the middle of it.  He used the word laguna—­lagoon, not lago—­lake.  His arrival in the Bahamas was at the height of the rainy season.  Governor Rawson’s Report on the Bahamas, 1864, page 92, Appendix 4, gives the annual rainfall at Nassau for ten years, 1855—­’64, as sixty-four inches.  From May 1, to November 1 is the wet season, during which 44.7 inches fall; the other six months 19.3 only.  The most is in October, 8.5 inches.

Andros, the largest island, 1,600 square miles, is the only one that has a stream of water.  The subdivision of the land into so many islands and keys, the absence of mountains, the showery characteristic of the rainfall, the porosity of the rock, and the great heat reflected from the white coral, are the chief causes for the want of running water.  During the rainy season the “abundance of water” collects in the low places, making ponds and lagoons, that afterward are soaked up by the rock and evaporated by the sun.

Turk and Watling have lagoons of a more permanent condition, because they are maintained from the ocean by permeation.  The lagoon which Columbus found at Guanahani had certainly undrinkable water, or he would have gotten some for his vessels, instead of putting it off until he reached the third island.

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.

Samana has a range of hills on the southwest side about one hundred feet high, and on the northeast another, lower.  Between them, and also along the north shore, the land is low, and during the season of rains there is a row of ponds parallel to the shore.  On the south side a conspicuous white bluff looks to the southward and eastward.

The two keys, lying respectively half a mile and three miles east of the island, and possibly the outer breaker, which is four miles, all might have been connected with each other, and with the island, four hundred years ago.  In that event the most convenient place for Columbus to anchor in the strong northeast trade-wind, was where I have put an anchor on the sub-sketch of Samana.

(In a subsequent passage Admiral Fox says:—­)

There is a common belief that the first landing place is settled by one or another of the authors cited here.  Nevertheless, I trust to have shown, paragraph by paragraph, wherein their several tracks are contrary to the journal, inconsistent with the true cartography of the neighborhood, and to the discredit, measurably, both of Columbus and of Las Casas.  The obscurity and the carelessness which appear in part of the diary through the Bahamas offer no obstacle to this demonstration, provided that they do not extend to the “log,” or nautical part.