On 19th October he left Fernandina, steering towards another island, called Saometo, where, as he gathered from the natives, he was to find rich mines of gold, and a monarch who held sway over all the surrounding lands. This potentate was said to dwell in a mighty city, and to wear garments studded with gold and gems. He reached the island in due time, but neither monarch nor mine found he. It was a delightful spot, however, blessed with deep lakes of fresh water, and with such swarms of singing-birds that the explorer felt, so he declared, that he could "never desire to depart thence. There are flocks of parrots which obscure the sun, and other brilliant birds of so many kinds and sizes, and all different from ours, that it is wonderful, and besides, there are trees of a thousand sorts, each having its particular fruit, and of marvellous flavour." To this enchanting island he gave the name of Isabella, after his royal patroness. Whilst the Discoverer was seeking for healing herbs, and "delighting in the fragrance of sweet and dainty flowers," and, moreover, "believing that here were many herbs which would be of great price in Spain for tinctures and medicines," his followers were clamouring to the natives concerning the whereabouts of mines of gold and silver, which, we need hardly say, existed only in their ardent, greedy, and deluded imaginations. Whether Columbus and his companions mistook the natives' signs or not, certain it is that, for several days, he was once more convinced he was in the neighbourhood of the islands of which Marco Polo had written. The capital of this archipelago was supposed to be a city called Quinsai, and there Columbus intended personally to deliver the letter of the Castilian sovereigns to the mysterious Khan. With his mind full of such airy castles, he set sail from Isabella on the 24th October, steering, haphazard, west-south-west. After three days' navigation, in the course of which he touched at a group of small islands, which he christened Islas de Arena, now supposed to be the Mucacas, he crossed the Bahama Bank, and hove in sight of Cuba. Lost in contemplation of the size and grandeur of the new island, its high soaring mountains, which, he tells us, reminded him of those of Sicily, its fertile valleys, its long, sweeping, and well-watered plains; its stately forests, its bold promontories and headlands melting away into the softest distance, he once more concluded that this, at last, must be the enchanted country of the Venetian explorer. Landing, he took possession in the name of Christ, Our Lady, and the Sovereigns of Spain, and christened the new country Juana, in honour of the Infanta Doña Juana. The land on which he set foot is believed to have been just to the west of Nuevitas del Principe, the seaport of the city of Puerto Principe. The objects which first arrested his attention were a couple of huts, from which the inmates had fled. Their interiors boasted no evidences of civilization or wealth.