CHAPTER XIII.
EVENTS OF THE FIRST VOYAGE "In nomine D.N.Jesu Christi--Friday, August 3, 1492, at eight o'clock we started from the bar of Saltes.

We went with a strong sea breeze sixty miles,--[Columbus reckoned in Italian miles, of which four = one league.]--which are fifteen leagues, towards the south, until sunset: afterwards to the south-west and to the south, quarter south-west, which was the way to the Canaries." [The account of Columbus's first voyage is taken from a Journal written by himself, but which in its original form does not exist.
Las Casas had it in his possession, but as he regarded it (no doubt with justice) as too voluminous and discursive to be interesting, he made an abridged edition, in which the exact words of Columbus were sometimes quoted, but which for the most part is condensed into a narrative in the third person.

This abridged Journal, consisting of seventy-six closely written folios, was first published by Navarrette in 1825.

When Las Casas wrote his 'Historie,' however, he appears here and there to have restored sections of the original Journal into the abridged one; and many of these restorations are of importance.

If the whole account of his voyage written by Columbus himself were available in its exact form I would print it here; but as it is not, I think it better to continue my narrative, simply using the Journal of Las Casas as a document.] With these rousing words the Journal of Columbus's voyage begins; and they sound a salt and mighty chord which contains the true diapason of the symphony of his voyages.