This was not far from right, the real distance being, in a direct line, three thousand one hundred and forty nautical miles, or three thousand six hundred and twenty statute miles.( *) It would not be considered a very long voyage for small vessels now.

In general the course was west.

Sometimes, for special reasons, they sailed south of west.

If they had sailed precisely west they would have struck the shore of the United States a little north of the spot where St.
Augustine now is, about the northern line of Florida.
(*) The computations from Santa Cruz, in the Canaries, to San Salvador give this result, as kindly made for us by Lieutenant Mozer, of the United States navy.
Had the coast of Asia been, indeed, as near as Toscanelli and Columbus supposed, this latitude of the Canary islands would have been quite near the mouth of the Yang-tse-Kiang river, in China, which was what Columbus was seeking.

For nearly a generation afterwards he and his followers supposed that the coast of that region was what they had found.
It was on Saturday, the eighth of September, that they lost sight of Teneriffe.