Equally illustrative of the ways and methods of the seamen at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries are Columbus’s letters dealing with his subsequent voyages. One of these letters he concludes thus: “Done on board the caravel off the Canary Islands,” and signs himself “The Admiral.” Some idea of the speed of his ship during his second voyage to the West Indies may be seen from the letter addressed to the Chapter of Seville by Dr. Chanca, physician to the fleet, in which he states that in two days, with fair wind and weather, they made fifty leagues. But the _Capitana_ was such a slow sailer that many times the others had to shorten sail. On the first voyage the _Nina_ similarly had to wait for the _Pinta_ to catch her up, and this lack of homogeneity in the fleet certainly lost them much time. In order to ensure a careful look-out being kept, a handsome reward had been promised to the first man sighting land. This was claimed “on the first Sunday after All Saints, namely, the third of November, about dawn,” when a pilot of the _Capitana_ cried out: “The reward! I see the land.” Of all the ship’s company, Columbus himself excepted, the pilots were the smartest and most skilful men, who “could navigate to or from Spain” “by their knowledge of the stars.” We see Columbus on his third voyage displaying all those characteristics of the cautious manner which had distinguished him already. There was little enough that he left to chance. When he was entering a strange haven, he used to send a boat out ahead in order to take soundings. (His ship the _Santa Maria_ had a large boat about 30 feet long which was usually towed astern, and a smaller boat about 10 feet long which was hoisted on deck.) “I passed thirty-three days without natural rest,” he writes in connection with his second voyage.