Even though, as you remember, he made his men sign a paper saying that the coast of Cuba was Asia, he really seems to have doubted this himself.

He felt that he had only found islands.

If so, he said, Cathay must be the other side of those islands; and Cathay is what I must find.
So, with this plan in mind, he sent three of his ships to the little settlement of Isabella, and with the other three he sailed more to the southwest.

On the first of August the ships came in sight of the three mountain peaks of the large island he called Trindad, or Trinity.
Look on your map of South America and you will see that Trinidad lies almost in the mouth of the Orinoco, a mighty river in the northern part of South America.
Columbus coasted about this island, and as he did so, looking across to the west, he saw what he supposed to be still another island.

It was not.