To-day, after mass, the king repeated that if the Admiral wanted anything he should have it. He conversed much with the Admiral respecting his voyage, always ordering him to sit down, and treating him with great favor.
To-day the Admiral took leave of the king, who entrusted him with some messages to the Sovereigns, and always treating him with much friendliness.[255-1] He departed after dinner, Don Martin de Noroña being sent with him, and all the knights set out with him, and went with him some distance, to do him honor. Afterwards he came to a monastery of San Antonio, near a place called Villafranca, where the Queen was residing. The Admiral went to do her reverence and to kiss her hand, because she had sent to say that he was not to go without seeing her. The Duke[256-1] and the Marquis were with her, and the Admiral was received with much honor. He departed at night, and went to sleep at Llandra.
To-day, as he was leaving Llandra to return to the caravel, an esquire of the king arrived, with an offer that if he desired to go to Castile by land, that he should be supplied with lodgings, and beasts, and all that was necessary. When the Admiral took leave of him, he ordered a mule to be supplied to him, and another for his pilot, who was with him, and he says that the pilot received a present of twenty _espadines_.[256-2] He said this that the Sovereigns might know all that was done. He arrived on board the caravel that night.
To-day, at 8 o'clock, with the flood tide, and the wind N.N.W., the Admiral got under way and made sail for Seville.
Yesterday, after sunset, a southerly course was steered, and before sunrise they were off Cape St. Vincent, which is in Portugal. Afterwards he shaped a course to the east for Saltes, and went on all day with little wind, "until now that the ship is off Furon."
Yesterday, after sunset, she went on her course with little wind, and at sunrise she was off Saltes. At noon, with the tide rising, they crossed the bar of Saltes, and reached the port which they had left on the 3rd of August of the year before.[257-1] The Admiral says that so ends this journal, unless it becomes necessary to go to Barcelona by sea, having received news that their Highnesses are in that city, to give an account of all his voyage which our Lord had permitted him to make, and saw fit to set forth in him. For, assuredly, he held with a firm and strong knowledge that His High Majesty made all things good, and that all is good except sin. Nor can he value or think of anything being done without His consent. "I know respecting this voyage," says the Admiral, "that he has miraculously shown his will, as may be seen from this journal, setting forth the numerous miracles that have been displayed in the voyage, and in me who was so long at the court of your Highnesses, working in opposition to and against the opinions of so many chief persons of your household, who were all against me, looking upon this enterprise as folly. But I hope in our Lord, that it will be a great benefit to Christianity, for so it has ever appeared." These are the final words of the Admiral Don Cristoval Colon respecting his first voyage to the Indies and their discovery.