News eventually came, however, that only one ship had been lost and that the rest had proceeded safely to San Domingo.

Columbus, much recovered in body and mind, now began to apply for a fleet for himself.

He had heard of the discovery by the Portuguese of the southern route to India; no doubt he had heard also much gossip of the results of the many private voyages of discovery that were sailing from Spain at this time; and he began to think seriously about his own discoveries and the way in which they might best be extended.

He thought much of his voyage to the west of Trinidad and of the strange pent-up seas and currents that he had discovered there.

He remembered the continual westward trend of the current, and how all the islands in that sea had their greatest length east and west, as though their shores had been worn into that shape by the constant flowing of the current; and it was not an unnatural conclusion for him to suppose that there was a channel far to the west through which these seas poured and which would lead him to the Golden Chersonesus.