Columbus drops Carib and sets course for Spain as his ships leak

Three hours before day he departed from the gulf that he named the Golfo de las Flechas, with a land wind, then with a west wind, heading east by north to go, so he says, to the Isla de Carib, where lived the people of whom all those islands and lands were so afraid, because, so he says, with their numberless canoas they roamed all those seas, and, so he says, they ate the men they can get. The course, so he says, had been shown him by some of those four Indians he took yesterday in the harbor of las Flechas. After he had gone, by his reckoning, 64 miles, the Indians signed to him that the said island would lie to the southeast: he wanted to take that course, and ordered the sails trimmed, and after he had gone 2 leagues the wind freshened, very good for going to Spain: he noticed among the people that they began to grow sad at turning aside from the direct course, because of the much water both caravels were taking in, and they had no remedy except that of God; …