4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I48 



described, would have been impossible and the author originally had 

 leaned toward Ferdinand Colon's theory of a "spiritual light" and 

 toward Admiral Morison's belief in a light that was in Columbus's 

 imagination. It could have been for this reason, probably, that no 

 one previously reconstructed the approach to an island of his choice to 

 test his own theory. 



Only a few theories are still discussed but, because of the size of 

 a torch light, the following suggestions have been eliminated by the 

 writer. Washington Irving (1849) wrote: 



They saw it [the light] once or twice afterwards in sudden and passing gleams ; 

 as if it were a torch in the bark of a fisherman, rising and sinking with the 

 waves ; or in the hand of some person on shore, borne up and down as he walked 

 from house to house . . . the island where Columbus had thus, for the first 

 time, set his foot upon the New World, was called by the natives, Guanahani. 

 It still retains the name of San Salvador, which he gave it, though called by the 

 English, Cat Island. The light which he had seen the evening previous to his 

 making land, may have been on Watling's Island, which lies a few leagues to the 

 east. 



In 1958, Marion and Edwin Link argued for the Caicos : 



... 7 miles north of the northernmost point of Turks Island, our party found 

 that we could see the top of its high bluff and the lighthouse that surmounts it. 

 We realized that Columbus, standing on the poop deck of the Santa Maria 

 14 feet above the water on that historic night, could easily have seen the flicker 

 of an Indian campfire on this point as it appeared and disappeared behind the 

 rolling seas. Or if the light 'like a small wax candle raised and lifted up' were a 

 torch carried in the canoe of some Indian fisherman a few miles offshore, accord- 

 ing to the dip tables it would still have been visible to Columbus 5 miles 

 away ... in approaching Caicos it would be simple to glimpse a light on or 

 near Turks Island 4 hours previous to the Landfall. 



Although the Links agree with Irving's type of reasoning, the writer 

 finds it difficult to believe that the sailors, having been at sea for 33 

 days, would have continued to sail on at the same pace on a dark night 

 to land on another island 4 hours later, if any of them had seen a 

 light. The writer finds this theory unacceptable, because it seems 

 incredible that, if Columbus saw a light on an island, he would not 

 have headed cautiously for that island and landed there. To discover 

 where the light was situated, therefore, we must identify the island 

 that Columbus called San Salvador. 



IDENTIFICATION OF GUANAHANI 



In his official report of his first voyage to the Indies, in the form 

 of a letter (Morison, 1959) to Luis de Santangel for King Ferdinand 

 and Queen Isabella of Spain, Columbus wrote, "To the first island 



