CHAP.
III.
CHRISTOPHER
COLUMBUS.
121
they affirmed that all the land he saw was connected.* As it was impossible to proceed further westward with his ships, he had no alternative but to retrace his course, and seek an exit to the north by the Boca del Dragon. He would gladly have continued for some time to explore this coast, for he considered himself in one of those opulent regions described as the most favored upon earth, and which increase in riches towards the equator. Impe rious considerations, however, compelled him to shorten his voy age, and hasten to San Domingo. The sea-stores of his ships were almost exhausted, and the various supplies for the colony, with which they were freighted, were in danger of spoiling. He was suffering, also, extremely in his health. Besides the gout, which had rendered him a cripple for the greater part of the voy age, he was afflicted by a complaint in his eyes, caused by fatigue and over-watching, which almost deprived him of sight, Even the voyage along the coast of Cuba, he observes, in which he was three and thirty days almost without sleep, had not so injured his eyes and disordered his frame, or caused him so much painful suffering, as the present.† On the 11th of August, therefore, he set sail eastward for the Boca del Dragon, and was borne along with great velocity by the currents, which, however, prevented him from landing again at his favorite spot, the Gardens. On Sunday the 13th, he anchored near to the Boca, in a fine harbor, to which he gave the name of Puerto de Gatos, from a species of monkey called gato paulo, with which the neighborhood abounded. On the margin of the sea he perceived many trees which, as he thought, produced the mirabolane, a fruit only found in the countries of the East. * Hist. del Almirante, cap. 78. †Letter of Columbus to the Sovereigns, Navarrete, tom. i. p. 252.
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