out from the air, and were almost certain it was the har- 

 bor which Columbus had described. 



They said that near Jacksonville they had also come 

 upon a point of land jutting into the sea which answered 

 Columbus's description of where a fort might be built, 

 "... a piece of land which is formed like an island al- 

 though it is not one, on which there were six houses; it 

 could be cut in order to form an island, in two days." 

 Near this piece of land, Pete said, the admiral had re- 

 corded the presence of a lovely grove of trees and much 

 water. They had observed a small lake directly behind 

 the point of land. 



Captain Weems did not return from his trip until 

 after ten that evening. With his customary exuberance, 

 he reported an interesting two days, during which he had 

 slept on the bare boards of the boat deck with his two 

 guides and subsisted on fish, conch and grits. 



They had followed the east shore of South and East 

 Caicos to Jacksonville harbor, hugging the shore so that 

 the captain could examine it in close detail. From Jack- 

 sonville they had entered the Going-Through passage to 

 the shallow waters of the inner banks. Beating against 

 the wind and waiting for tides to rise sufficiently to allow 

 them to travel on the second day, it had taken them until 

 this late hour to return to Sea Diver. 



Captain Weems described the great stumps which he 

 had seen whenever he went ashore, striking indications of 

 the trees once used by the Indians to fashion their dugout 

 canoes. Wild pigs and donkeys had dashed away as he 

 approached the ruins of old plantation houses and barren 

 stretches of what had once been cultivated farming 

 areas. He said the fishermen had told him that there were 

 Indian carvings on the walls of the caves near Jackson- 

 ville, but he had not had time to investigate them. 



He said he was sure that the reef harbor at Jackson- 



On the Track of Columbus 313 



