There was a good western wind, and on the evening of the sixteenth of January Columbus gave way and they bore away for home.
Columbus had satisfied himself in this week that there were many islands east of him which he had not hit upon, and that to the easternmost of these, from the Canaries, the distance would prove not more than four hundred leagues.

In this supposition he was wholly wrong, though a chain of islands does extend to the southeast.
He seems to have observed the singular regularity by which the trade winds bore him steadily westward as he came over.

He had no wish to visit the Canary Islands again, and with more wisdom than could have been expected, from his slight knowledge of the Atlantic winds, he bore north.

Until the fourteenth of February the voyage was prosperous and uneventful.

One day the captive Indians amused the sailors by swimming.
There is frequent mention of the green growth of the Sargasso sea.