8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I48 



group. This being so, the writer has attempted to identify the present 

 San Salvador Island as Columbus's landfall and in particular to deter- 

 mine whether Columbus could have seen a light from shore 4 hours 

 before he sighted land at 2 a.m. on October 12, 1492. 



To investigate this problem, the author conducted a Columbus Ex- 

 pedition in October 1959, sponsored by the Bahamian patriot Hon. 

 Sir George Roberts, president of the Legislative Council for the 

 Colony. The results of this expedition depended greatly on pre- 

 liminary studies which will now be outlined and which led to the 

 explanation of how and why Columbus saw the light he described 

 in his Journal. 



Several points in the following light-landfall discussion hinge on 

 the interpretation and translation of the Journal of Columbus. It is 

 agreed that the original may have been lost, but it was seen by 

 Ferdinand Colon, 11 son of Columbus, and he used it when he wrote 

 the biography of his father. The original was abridged by Las 

 Casas. 12 This is the Journal used by most historians ; its accuracy 



(b) Yachtsman's Guide to the Bahamas (Etheridge, 1952, p. 231), an official 

 publication, says this, "Locally it is known as Watlings Island in honour of a 

 famous buccaneer who made his base there in the 18th century." 



(c) John Harris (1743), vol. 1, p. 86), says that Captains Coxon, Sawkins, 

 Sharpe, and others, arrived at the island of Juan Fernandez at Christmas, 1680. 

 After Sawkins had been killed in battle, Sharpe was made Chief of Command, 

 after which the crew disposed of Sharpe, "and made choice of one Captain 

 Watling to command, under whom they attempted Arica ; but were repulsed 

 with the loss of 28 men, among whom was their new Commander Captain 

 Watling . . ." He was Captain for only a few months, and then Sharpe was 

 restored to Chief Command. 



(d) Esquemeling (1893, pp. 273, 274, 408) calls him John Watling. John 

 Watling is depicted as cruel for having killed an old man, and was made captain 

 only because the mutineers outnumbered the others. He was Captain for 24 

 days only, and on Sunday, January 30, 1681, was killed while attempting to 

 plunder Arica. 



(e) Charles P. Bethel, for Stafford L. Sands, Bahamas Development Board re- 

 ported that after an "exhaustive enquiry" he was unable to find the date on which 

 the island of Watlings first received its name. He kindly sent the writer informa- 

 tion from the late Mary Moseley's Bahamas Handbook, 1926, which says, 

 "Its other name (San Salvador being the official name) was evidently bestowed 

 on it out of compliment to Captain George Watling, a noted buccaneer, who 

 probably frequented it, but whose chief claim to remembrance was his rigid 

 observance of the Sabbath, his crew being severely punished if they threw dice 

 on a Sunday. In some old charts the name is spelt Watland." 



11 Ferdinand Colon wrote this book to defend the attacks made against his 

 father in Giustiniani's Annali di Genoa, 1537, which he said were not true. 



12 First priest ordained in the New World, Bartolome de Las Casas wrote the 

 Historia dc las Indies, supposedly the most authentic of all accounts. 



