Christopher Columbus's Letter to Raphael Sanxis on the Discovery of America, written in March 1493, after the explorer had returned to Europe, reports what he had found in the New World. Columbus, a mariner from Genoa, Italy, set sail from Spain in 1492 in command of three ships—the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María—and a crew of about eighty-seven men. His goal was to find a trade route to India, which Europeans at the time reached by traveling east over land or water, by sailing around the world in a westerly direction. He crossed the Atlantic and arrived in the West Indies, the numerous islands that border the Caribbean Sea between North America and South America. These islands make up what are today called the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles, and the Bahamas. Columbus, though, believed that he had circled the world and arrived in Asia, which is why he called the islands the Indies and referred to their inhabitants as Indians. In Columbus's day, Europeans referred to all lands east of the Indus River as the Indies.