The light brightened. The water about us turned a blue
that none there had ever seen, so turquoise, so cerulean, so
penetrable by the eye! Before us gentle surf broke on a
beach bone-white. The beach with little rise met woodland;
thick it seemed and of a vivid greenness and fairly covering
the island. It was island, masthead told us, who saw
blue ribbon going around. Moreover, there were two others,
no greater, upon the horizon. Nor, though the woodland
seemed thick as pile of velvet, was it desolate isle. We
made out in three places light plumes of smoke. Now some
one uttered a cry, "Men!"
They were running out of the wood, down upon the white
beach. There might be a hundred.
"Naked men! They are dark--They are negroes!"--
"Or magicians!"
The Admiral lifted his great voice. "Mariners all! India
and Cathay are fringed with islands, as are many parts
of Europe. A dozen of you have sailed among the Greek
islands. There may be as many here as those. This is a
small island and its folk simple. They are not Negroes,
but the skin of the Indian is darker than ours, and that
of Cipango and Cathay is yellow. As for clothing, in all
warm lands the simpler folk wear little. But as for ma-
gicians, there may be magicians among them as there are
among all peoples, but it is falseness and absurdity to speak
of all as magicians! Nonsense and cowardice! The man
who cried that goes not ashore to-day!"
Not Great India before us nor Golden Cipango! But
it was land--land--it was solid, there were folk! How
long had flowed the sea around us, for this was the twelfth
of October, five weeks since Gomera and above two months
since Palos had sunk away and we had heard the last faint
bell of La Rabida! And there had been strong doubt if
ever we should see again a white beach, or a tree, or a
kindly fire ashore, or any men but those of our three ships,
or ever another woman or a child.
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