CHAP, i.] WEST INDIES. 129 



gation, on Saturday the 3d of May, he discovered, for 

 the first time, the high lands of Jamaica on the left, 

 and probably learnt its name (the name which it still 

 retains) from some of the Indians that followed him. f 

 As this was a new discovery, and many of the seamen 

 were willing to believe that it was the place to which 

 they had been formerly directed by the Indians of the 

 Bahama islands, as the country most abounding in 

 gold, Columbus was easily persuaded to turn his 

 course towards it. He approached it the next day, 

 and, after a slight contest with the natives, which 

 ended however in a cordial reconciliation, he took pos- 

 session of the country, with the usual formalities. 



But it was not until the fourth and last voyage of 

 Columbus, a voyage undertaken by this great naviga- 

 tor after he had suffered a severer trial from the base 

 ingratitude of the country and prince in whose ser- 

 vice he laboured, than from all his past toils, dangers 

 and inquietudes, that he learnt more of Jamaica; 

 which, as it had the honour of being first discovered 

 by him nine years before, had now the still greater 

 honour of affording him shelter from shipw r reck. For. 

 on the 24th of June 1503, being on his return to Hi- 

 spaniola, from Veragua, he met with such tempestu- 

 ous weather as compelled him, after losing two of 



f P. Martyr. F. Columbus. The early Spanish histoiiuns wrote 

 the word Xaymaca. It is said to have signified, in the language ot the 

 natives, a country abounding in springs. Columbus having at first named 

 the isl;uvl St. Ja?o t Oldmixon, and some other writers, erroneously 

 suppose that Jamaica was the augmentative of James. 



Vol. I. </ 



