“After this, about ten at night, as the admiral was in the great cabin, he saw a light on shore, but said it was so obscure that he could not affirm it to be land, though he called Pedro Gutierrez, and bid him observe whether he saw the light, who said he did. Shortly afterward they called Rodrigo Sanchez, of Segovia, to look that way, but he could not see it, because he did not come in time to the place where it might have been seen. They did not see it more than once or twice, which induced them to think that it might have been a candle or a torch belonging to some fisherman or traveller, who lifted it up and down; or, perhaps, that it was in the hands of people going from one house to another, as the light vanished and suddenly appeared again.... Being now very watchful, they still held on their course, until about two in the morning, when the caravel Pinta, which, being an excellent sailer, was far ahead, gave the signal of land, which was first discovered by a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana, when two leagues from the shore. But the annuity of thirty crowns was not given to him by their catholic majesties, but to the admiral, who had seen the light in the darkness, signifying the spiritual light that he was then spreading in those dark regions. Being now near land, all the ships lay to, those on board thinking it was a long time until morning, when they might see what they had so long desired.”[145] This island, says Bartolomé de las Casas, the Spanish historian,[146] was “one of the Lucayos, called by the Indians Guanahani.[147] Presently they descried people, naked, and the admiral landed in the boat, which was armed, along with Martin Alonso Pinzon and Vicente Yañez, his brother, captain of the Nina. The admiral bore the royal standard, and the two captains each a banner of the green cross, which all the vessels had carried. The banner was emblazoned with the initials of the names of the king and queen[148] on each side of the cross, with a crown over each letter. When they came on the beach, they saw trees very green, an abundance of water, and fruit of different kinds. The admiral called the two captains and the other men who had come on land, and Rodrigo de Escovedo, notary of the fleet, and Rodrigo Sanchez de Segovia, and said that he had summoned them to bear witness that he, before all other men, took possession (as in act he did) of that island for the king and the queen, his sovereigns, making the requisite declarations which are more at large set down in the instrument which they made there in writing.”