244 DOTTINOS ON THE ROADSIDE. [Chap. XV.—B. P. 
seamen especially as unfortunate, it is hard to imagine, 
for it is perhaps the most remarkable day of the seven 
in nautical annals: for example, on that day Co¬ 
lumbus started from Spain on the grandest voyage 
history records, and, what is more, it was on a Friday 
that he brought that wonderful voyage to a successful 
termination by the discovery of a new world. This re¬ 
minds me that before narrating the occurrences of our 
very pleasant cruise, and visit to Eoyalty at the seat 
of Government, Blewfields, it will not be out of place 
to take a brief retrospective view of the discovery and 
geographical position of the Mosquito Coast. 
The Coast of Mosquito was discovered by Columbus 
himself, who arrived off a group of islands, since 
called the Bay Islands, and landed on the eastern¬ 
most one, named Guanaja, on the 30th July, 1502. 
From this place he observed the mountains of the 
mainland, distant about fifteen miles, and, sailing 
over, landed on the coast on the 14th August, 1502. 
Columbus went on shore at a point now called Cape 
Honduras, near which a Spanish town named Truxillo 
was afterwards built by Fernando Cortez, and which 
has formed the frontier post on that coast for nearly 
350 years, the limit, in fact, of Spanish encroachment 
to the eastward. The exact boundary of the Mos¬ 
quito Coast has from that day to this been a subject 
of dispute among writers on this part of the Hew 
World, but the majority are of opinion that the 
Mosquito Coast comprises all that portion of Central 
America which has never been actually subjected and 
occupied by a de facto government of the conquerors 
