The distinction has been claimed, by authorities worthy of respectful consideration, for no fewer than five. Down to the middle of the Nineteenth Century the weight of opinion and tradition favored Cat Island, and upon most maps and charts it was designated as "Guanahani, or San Salvador." It is by far the largest and the northernmost of the five islands in question. Next, to the southeast, lies Watling's Island, to which the distinction of having been the scene of Columbus's landfall has now for half a century been most generally given, and upon maps it is generally named San Salvador. It is the only one of the five which stands out in the Atlantic, beyond the generally uniform line of the Bahamas, as a sort of advance post to greet the voyager from the east. Samana, south by east from Watling's, also called Attwood's Cay, was selected as the true Guanahani by some officers of the United States Coast Survey. Mariguana, further in the same direction, was proclaimed "La Verdadera Guanahani" by F. A. de Varnhagen in a scholarly treatise published in 1864 at Santiago de Chili. Finally, Grand Turk Island, at the southeastern extremity of the Bahama chain, and just north of the coast of Hayti, was designated by Navarrete, in 1825, and by various other authorities, chiefly American, at later dates. [Illustration: MONUMENT ON SUPPOSED FIRST LANDING PLACE OF COLUMBUS, WATLING'S ISLAND] The chief interest of these speculations for present consideration in this writing is their bearing upon the subsequent course of Columbus, the identity of the next islands which he visited, and finally the point at which he first touched the coast of Cuba. If the original landfall was on Cat or on Watling's Island, then the second land visited, which Columbus called Santa Maria de la Concepcion, was probably either the tiny island now known as Concepcion or the larger Rum Cay; the third, called by him Ferdinandina or Fernandina, was either Great Exuma or Long Island; the fourth, Isabella, may have been either Long Island or Crooked Island, according to whether Fernandina was Great Exuma or Long Island; and the coast of Cuba was reached at some point between Punta Lucrecia and Port Nuevitas. On the other hand, if Grand Turk Island was first reached, the second land would naturally have been, as Navarrete held, at Gran Caico; the third at Little Inagua; the fourth at Great Inagua; and Cuba would have been reached somewhere between Cape Maysi and Sama Point. To me it seems decidedly the more probable that the former course was pursued, and I have accordingly adopted the theory that Columbus first landed in Cuba in the region between Nuevitas and Punta Lucrecia.