The Adelantado no less. "Cristoforo, it
looks satisfaction at last!" And the young Fernando,--
"Father, let us sail west!"
The Admiral was trying to come at that Strait. Earnestly,
through Juan Lepe and through a Jamaican that we had with
us, he strove to give and take light. Yucatan? Was there
sea beyond Yucatan? Did sea like a river cut Yucatan?
Might a canoe--might canoes like ours--go by it from
this sea to that sea?
But nothing did we get save that Yucatan was a great
country with sea here and sea there. "A point of the main
like Cuba!" said the Admiral. Behind it, to the north of it,
it seemed to us, the greater country where were the gold,
the rich clothing, the temples. But we made out that Yucatan
from sea to sea was many days' march. And as for
the country beyond it, that went on, they thought, forever.
They called this country Anahuac and they meant the same
that years afterward Hernando Cortes found. But we did
not know this. We did not know that strange people and
their great treasure.
The Admiral looked out to sea. "I have cried, `West--
west--west!' through a-many years! Yucatan! But I
make out no sea-passage thence into Vasco da Gama's India!
And I am sworn to the Queen and King Ferdinand this time
to find it. So it's south, it's south, brother and son!"
So, our casks being full, our fruit gathered, the sky clear
and the wind fair, we left the west to others and sailed to
find the strait in the south.
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