CHAPTER 1.


 SPANISH DISCOVERY

 The Columbus contact with Honduras was made in 1502,
on his fourth voyage to the New World, ten years after he
had landed at San Salvador in the Bahamas. The great Gen-
oese navigator in the service of Spain, seeking a waterway to
India and China through Middle America, touched at Gua-
naja, now Bonacca, in the Bay Islands. There he received
the visit of a huge canoe some eight feet wide, made from a
single log, paddled by two dozen men, and coming from a
region in the northwest called "Maiam." A Maya chief or
trader was lodged in the centre of the dugout, and from the
implements of these visitors, their cotton mantles, gold ear-
rings, pottery, and general deportment the Admiral con-
cluded that he had touched the outpost of a civilization much
more developed than that of the Caribs of the West India
Islands from where he had just sailed.
 From Guanaja he proceeded to the mainland, where mass
was said at Punta Casinas, near what are now Punta Castilla
and Truxillo, on Sunday June 14, but as Columbus was ill
he did not land personally either here or at the Rio de la
Posesion on Wednesday the 17th. However, his sons Barto-
lome and Fernando did so. Columbus, as a seaman, was not
much interested in exploring the land, so he continued his
voyage southward, looking for the waterway to Caibay. At
Cape Gracias a Dios he found shelter from a great storm, and
this name perpetuates his thanks to God for escaping from
the area of great depths he called "Las Honduras."
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