Columbus speaks of the island as being “small,” and again as “pretty large” (_bien grande_). He calls it very level, with abundance of water, and a very large lagune in the middle; and it was in the last month of the rainy season, when the low parts of the islands are usually flooded. Some of the features of the several islands already named will now be mentioned, together with a statement of the authorities in favor of each as the landfall. SAN SALVADOR, OR CAT.—This island is forty-three miles long by about three broad, with an area of about one hundred and sixty square miles, rising to a height of four hundred feet, the loftiest land in the group, and with no interior water. It is usual in the maps of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to identify this island with the Guanahani of Columbus. It is so considered by Catesby in his _Natural History of Carolina_ (1731); by Knox in his _Collection of Voyages_ (1767); by De la Roquette in the French version of Navarrete, vol. ii. (1828); and by Baron de Montlezun in the _Nouvelles annales des voyages_, vols. x. and xii. (1828-1829). Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, of the United States Navy, worked out the problem for Irving; and this island is fixed upon in the latter’s _Life of Columbus_, app. xvi., editions of 1828 and 1848. Becher claims that the modern charts used by Irving were imperfect; and he calls “not worthy to be called a chart” the La Cosa map, which so much influenced Humboldt in following Irving, in his _Examen critique_ (1837), iii. 181, 186-222. [Illustration: GERMAN TRANSLATION OF THE FIRST LETTER OF COLUMBUS (TEXT).] WATLING’S.—This is thirteen miles long by about six broad, containing sixty square miles, with a height of one hundred and forty feet, and having about one third its area of interior water. It was first suggested by Muñoz in 1793. Captain Becher, of the Royal Navy, elaborated the arguments in favor of this island in the _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, xxvi. 189, and _Proceedings_, i. 94, and in his _Landfall of Columbus on his First Voyage to America_, London, 1856. Peschel took the same ground in his _Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_ (1858). R. H. Major’s later opinion is in support of the same views, as shown by him in the _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_ (1871), xvi. 193, and _Proceedings_, xv. 210. Cf. _New Quarterly Review_, October, 1856.