Preparations were now made to go out and find this native king, and to gather as much information as possible. Louis de Torres was to go as interpreter, and so was Rodrigo de Jerez. It seems that Jerez had once met a black king in Africa, and was therefore thought to be most familiar with the proper etiquette toward pagan royalty. With them went the diplomatic portfolio – Latin passports, a royal letter to the Great Khan, strips of glass beads to buy food, and a gift thought suitable for royalty. The messengers set out inland; they found pleasant native villages with fields of maize, potatoes, and tobacco. They saw men and women smoking cigars, hardly suspecting that they were observing a source of future wealth far greater than all the spices of the East. They passed fields of growing cotton and saw piles of yarn waiting to be woven into crude cloth or twisted into nets. But nowhere did they find any cities, no spices or gold, and soon they returned disappointed to the ships on the coast.
Columbus had meanwhile made some calculations of his own, and had already begun to realize that something was wrong here. If this land of Colba was indeed part of the Asiatic continent, it was nearer than even he had estimated. And if this was the Chinese mainland, where was Japan, that isle of Cipango, which lay somewhere off its coast? Again, all the natives indicated that there was a great island to the southeast; they called it Babaque and assured him that it contained lots of gold. Once again the Spaniards took their word for it and set sail in that direction.
It was during this crossing that the Pinta suddenly became separated from the other two ships; always the fastest of the three vessels, Columbus was certain that Martin Pinzon had deserted them deliberately. The Santa Maria and the Nina, however, continued on; they crossed the Windward Passage, and on December 6 landed on the northwest coast of Haiti, which Columbus named Hispaniola.
This time the Spaniards were so overwhelmed by the tropical beauty of this Hispaniola that the Admiral actually ran out of adjectives while describing it in his journal. Never had he seen a harbor as perfect as this one; the natives were even more hospitable than elsewhere; the women, completely naked, had “very pretty bodies” and none of their men prevented them from offering themselves to the strangers. But most important of all, these natives appeared to have lots of gold, and when asked about it, they inland and said the magic word – “Cibao!” Columbus at once grasped at this similarity of sound between Cibao and Cipango. At last! Though Cipango apparently was much closer to the Chinese coast – which he still believed Cuba to be – than anyone had suspected, it was by now very clear that somebody’s geography was all wrong. For now, Christopher Columbus was satisfied to have reached his goal.
But before they had much of an opportunity to explore this paradise, a sudden accident changed all their plans. In the early hours of Christmas morning, the Santa Maria struck a sandbank near today’s Port-de-Paix; all attempts to get her afloat again failed, and soon the waves beat her to pieces. All at once, this disaster reminded Columbus that no one in Spain had as yet learned of his discovery. The entire expedition had suddenly been reduced to the little Nina – what if another accident should strand them all helplessly on these strange shores? No one knew for certain what had happened to the Pinta and her crew; even if they were still alive and eventually reached Spain, they would probably claim all the credit for themselves. It had become most important now to return home and report on their discovery; no doubt, it would then be easy enough to get ships and men for a second voyage.