About the middle of February a succession of tremendous tempests overtook the vessels. For days they drove before a gale which carried them in a north-easterly direction and threatened every moment to sink them and hide all vestiges of the great transatlantic expedition beneath the waves. Pinzon, owing to the injured condition of his mast, had no control over his ship, and was soon carried out of sight of Columbus. The latter felt that the time had come to employ all his knowledge of seamanship. An ordinary prosaic ship-captain of the present day, finding himself in a like situation, would have brought his ship down to a close-reefed maintopsail, and, bringing the wind on his starboard quarter, would have steered about east by south, and so carried the ship out of the cyclone in two or three hours. Columbus, however, was far too scientific a navigator to adopt any such commonplace expedient. He mustered his crew, and ordered them to draw lots to see who should vow to make pilgrimages in case they should succeed in reaching land. He himself drew a lot which required him to make one pilgrimage to Santa Clara de Moguer, and another to Santa Maria de Guadalupe, and, in addition, to pay for a series of masses and to present candles to the Blessed Virgin. As this manœuvre, which was at that time regarded as one of the most abstruse known to mariners, unaccountably failed to better the condition of the ship, the entire crew vowed to march to the first available church bare-footed and clad only in their shirts. The frightful nature of the storm may be imagined from the fact that, in spite of this splendid display of Spanish seamanship, the _Niña_ continued to exhibit a determined propensity to go to pieces or to founder. Having thus done everything that a sailor could do, and all without avail, Columbus yielded to the promptings of superstition, and filling a quantity of empty casks with sea-water placed them in the hold, where he hoped they would render the ship somewhat stiffer. The _Niña_ at once became steadier and ceased to try to lie over on her side, and it is quite possible that Columbus believed that his superstitious use of casks had more to do with the salvation of the ship than all the combined vows of the Admiral and his men. While in imminent danger of drowning, Columbus had the cool forethought to write a full account of his discoveries. He enclosed the manuscript in a water-tight barrel, which he threw overboard after having attached to it a written request that the finder would return it to Christopher Columbus, or his representatives at Cadiz, Spain, where he would be suitably rewarded. It has not yet been found, but it is the intention of Dr. Schliemann, the discoverer of the personal jewelry of Helen of Troy, to discover it whenever he can spare a few days from more important discoveries.