But he found himself surrounded by islands and banks in every direction, which made any straight course impossible.

He sailed south and east and west and north, and found himself always back again in the middle of this charmed group of islands.
He spent almost a month trying to escape from them, and once his ship went ashore on a sandbank and was only warped off with the greatest difficulty.

On July 7th he was back again in the region of the "Queen's Gardens," from which he stood across to the coast of Cuba.
He anchored and landed there, and being in great distress and difficulty he had a large cross erected on the mainland, and had mass said.

When the Spaniards rose from their knees they saw an old native man observing them; and the old man came and sat down beside Columbus and talked to him through the interpreter.

He told him that he had been in Jamaica and Espanola as well as in Cuba, and that the coming of the Spaniards had caused great distress to the people of the islands.
He then spoke to Columbus about religion, and the gist of what he said was something like this: "The performance of your worship seems good to me.