Therefore he anchored now between the Beata and this island, between which there are two leagues of sea, Monday, August 20. He then sent the boats to land to call Indians, as there were villages there, in order to write of his arrival to the Adelantado; having come at midday, he despatched them. Twice there came to the ship six Indians, and one of them carried a crossbow with its cord, and nut and rack,[366-1] which caused him no small surprise, and he said, "May it please God that no one is dead." And because from Sancto Domingo the three ships must have been seen to pass downward, and concluding that it certainly was the Admiral as he was expecting him each day, the Adelantado started then in a caravel and overtook the Admiral here. They both were very much pleased to see each other. The Admiral having asked him about the condition of the country, the Adelantado recounted to him how Francisco Roldan had arisen with 80 men, with all the rest of the occurrences which had passed in this island, since he left it. What he felt on hearing such news, there is small need to recite.
He left there, Wednesday, August 22, and finally with some difficulty because of the many currents and the north-east breezes which are continuous and contrary there he arrived at this port of Sancto Domingo, Friday, the last day of August of the said year 1498, having set out from Isabela for Castile, Thursday the tenth day of March, 1496, so that he delayed in returning to this island two years and a half less nine days.
[319-1] _I.e._, the first Admiral of the Ocean and the Indies where Las Casas was when he was writing.
[319-2] This clause is probably an explanatory remark by Las Casas. It is misleading. The war in Naples growing out of the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. of France, in which Ferdinand had taken an active part against the French, had been brought to a close so far as concerned France and Spain by a truce in March, 1497. The treaty of peace was signed August 5, 1498.
[320-2] This positive assertion that Columbus had lived in Funchal, Madeira, has been overlooked by Vignaud and Harrisse. Vignaud, _Études Critiques sur la Vie de Colomb avant ses Découvertes_ (Paris, 1905), p. 443, note 9, rejects as unauthenticated the tradition that Columbus lived in Madeira, without adequate grounds it seems to me. Diego Columbus told Las Casas in 1519 that he was born in the neighboring island of Puerto Santo and that his father had lived there. Las Casas, _Historia de las Indias_, I. 54. This passage is not noted by Vignaud.