And after a month Columbus gave way to their remonstrances, and abandoned his search for a channel to India.

He was the more ready to do this because he was satisfied that the land by which he lay was connected with the coast which other Spaniards had already discovered.

He therefore sailed westward again, retracing his course to explore the gold mines of Veragua.
But the winds could change as quickly as his purposes, and now for nearly a fortnight they had to fight a tropical tempest.

At one moment they met with a water-spout, which seemed to advance to them directly.
The sailors, despairing of human help, shouted passages from St.John, and to their efficacy ascribed their escape.

It was not until the seventeenth that they found themselves safely in harbor.