enemies to the south, he intended it as a warning that the 

 men he was leaving behind would be well able to look 

 after themselves. 



When Columbus sailed, he left thirty-nine men in the 

 fortress which had been built, along with "all the mer- 

 chandise which the sovereigns commanded to be brought 

 for purposes of barter, and this was much, in order that 

 they might deal and exchange it for gold, with all that had 

 been brought from the ship. He left them also bread, bis- 

 cuit for a year and wine and much artillery, and the boat 

 of the ship. . . . He left them also some seeds to sow, and 

 his o£Bcials, the escribano and the alguacil, and with them 

 a ship's carpenter and a caulker and a good gunner who 

 well understood machines, and a cooper, and a doctor, and 

 a tailor, and all, as he says, seamen." 



The little settlement was called La Villa de Navidad, 

 because the events leading to its founding had occurred 

 on Christmas Eve. 



This, then, was the story of what was probably the 

 most famous and important shipwreck in history, for it 

 resulted in the founding of the first European settlement 

 in the New World, and thus established Spain's rights with 

 the Holy See to this part of the earth for several centuries 

 to come. Had Columbus returned to Spain without leaving 

 this seed of colonization, it seems very possible that Portu- 

 gal or England, which were aheady planning similar ex- 

 peditions into the unknown, might well have estabhshed 

 their claims first. 



Reef Diver's high-pitched whine as she coursed up and 

 down near the reef slowly penetrated my consciousness 

 and brought me back to the fact that it was Easter, 1955, 

 and that I was sitting on Sea Diver's aft deck with a book 

 in my hand. From our anchorage I could just see the spire 

 of the church at Limonade Bord de Mer, several miles 



Search for the Santa Maria 183 



