“I do not doubt that if the Admiral had believed there would succeed such pernicious detriment as did succeed, and had known as much of the primary and secondary conclusions of natural and divine right as he knew of cosmography and other human doctrines, he would never have dared to introduce or establish a thing which was to produce such calamitous evils; for no one can say that he was not a good and Christian man.” The course taken by Columbus does not show that he was exceptionally immoral; for morality is at least so conventional as to be entitled to be judged in the light of the age under consideration. But his course does show that he was not above the moral debasement of the age in which he lived, on the one hand, and, on the other, that he was destitute, not only of the characteristics of what we call statesmanship, but also of ordinary tact and good judgment. Nothing could have been easier than by a judicious use of rewards and inducements to persuade a sufficient number of the natives to accompany the fleet in a most friendly spirit. Either this was not perceived, or it was not desired. In either case, the whole history is a sad commentary on the management of the Admiral. In spite of the popular superstition, Columbus did not hesitate to set sail for home on Friday. It had been on Friday that he left Palos; on Friday that he left the Canaries; and now on Friday, the 4th of January, he took leave of the colony at La Navidad and ordered the pilots to set the rudder for home. On the 9th day of January they proceeded thirty-six leagues, as far as Punta Roxa, or Red Point, where the Admiral records that they found tortoises as big as bucklers, and where also he saw three mermaids that raised themselves far above the water. Of the latter the Admiral has the frankness to say that although they had something like a human face, they were not so handsome as they are painted. Two days later Columbus came to a mountain covered with snow, which he named Monte de Plata; and, a little beyond, after passing a succession of capes, which were duly named, he came to a vast bay in which he determined to remain to observe the conjunction that was to be seen on the 17th. Here for the first time he found men with bows and arrows, and not only bought a bow and some arrows, but learned from one of the natives that the Caribs were to the eastward, and that gold was to be found on an island not far away, which he called the island of St. John. Bernaldez says that “in the islands of these Caribs, as well as in the neighbouring ones, there is gold in incalculable quantity, cotton in vast abundance, and especially spices, such as pepper, which is four times as strong and pungent as the pepper that we use in Spain.”