determined to write out daily a minute account of the voyage respecting what I do and see, and the passage, as hereafter will appear. Moreover, sovereign princes, besides recording each night my progress during the day and the run made during the night, I intend to make a new nautical chart (_carta nueva de navegar_), in which I shall delineate all the sea and the lands of the Ocean in their proper places under their wind; and, moreover, I shall compose a book and represent the whole like a picture by latitude, from the equator, and by longitude, from the West, wherefore it will cause me to abstain from sleep and to make many experiments in navigation, for these things will require no little labor.”[136] [Illustration: FIELD OF VOYAGES TO AMERICA. ON MERCATOR’S PROJECTION.] The vessels of the fleet were the ship (_la nao_), Santa Maria,[137] commanded by Columbus, and two caravels, (_carabelas_,) La Pinta, commanded by Martin Alonso Pinzon, and La Nina, by Vicente Yañes Pinzon, his brother, both being natives and seamen of Palos. “Being furnished with all necessaries and ninety men,”[138] says Ferdinand Columbus, “they set sail on the third of August directly toward the Canaries, and from that time forward the admiral was very careful to keep an accurate journal of all that happened to him during the voyage, specifying the wind that blew, how far he sailed with it, the currents he found, and what he saw by the way, whether birds or fishes, or other things.... “The next day after the admiral’s departure for the Canary Islands, it being Saturday, the fourth of August, the rudder of one of the caravels, of the one called La Pinta, broke loose, and the caravel being compelled to lie to, the admiral soon reached her side, but the wind blowing hard he could render no assistance, as commanders at sea are obliged to do to encourage those that are in distress. This he did more promptly, as he conceived that the unshipping of the rudder had been brought about by the contrivance of the master to avoid going on the voyage, as he had attempted to do before they set sail.”[139]