point forward his claims to supremacy are embarrassed and complicated with the long series of failures, vexations, miseries, insults, that have rendered his career as a planter of colonies and as a ruler of men most pitiful and remarkable.

The climate of Navidad proved unhealthy; the colonists were greedy of gold, impatient of control, and as proud, ignorant, and mutinous as Spaniards could be; and Columbus, whose inclinations drew him westward, was doubtless glad to escape the worry and anxiety of his post, and to avail himself of the instructions of his sovereigns as to further discoveries. In January, 1494, he sent home, by Antonio de Torres, that dispatch to their Catholic Highnesses by which he may be said to have founded the West Indian slave trade. He founded the mining camp of San Tomaso in the gold country; and on April 24, 1494, having nominated a council of regency under his brother Diego, and appointed Pedro de Margarite his captain-general, he put again to sea. After following the southern shore of Cuba for some days, he steered southward, and discovered the Island of Jamaica, which he named Santiago. He then resumed his exploration of the Cuban coast, threading his way through a labyrinth of islets supposed to be the Morant Keys, which he named the Garden of the Queen, and after coasting westward for many days he became convinced that he had discovered the mainland, and called Perez de Luna, the notary, to draw up a document attesting his discovery (June 12, 1494), which was afterward taken round and signed, in presence of four witnesses, by the masters, mariners, and seamen of his three caravels, the Niña, the Cadera, and the San Juan. He then stood to the southeast and sighted the Island of Evangelista; and after many days of difficulties and anxieties he touched at and named the Island La Mona. Thence

he had intended to sail eastward and complete the survey of the Carribean Archipelago. But he was exhausted by the terrible wear and tear of mind and body he had undergone (he says himself that on this expedition he was threeand-thirty days almost without any sleep), and on the day following his departure from La Mona he fell into a lethargy that deprived him of sense and memory, and had well nigh proved fatal to life. At last, on September 29th,

the little fleet dropped anchor off Isabella, and in his new city the great Admiral lay sick for five months.

The colony was in a sad plight. Everyone was discontented, and many were sick, for the climate was unhealthy and there was nothing to eat. Margarite and Boyle had quitted Española for Spain; but ere his departure the former, in his capacity as captain-general, had done much to outrage and alienate the Indians. The strongest measures were necessary to undo this mischief; and, backed by his brother Bartholomew, a bold and skillful mariner, and a soldier of courage and resource, who had been with Diaz in his voyage around the Cape of Good Hope, Columbus proceeded to reduce the natives under Spanish sway. Alonzo de Ojeda succeeded, by a brilliant coup de main, in capturing the Cacique Caonabo, and the rest submitted. Five ship-loads of Indians were sent off to Seville (June 24, 1495) to be sold as slaves; and a tribute was imposed upon their fellows, which must be looked upon as the origin of that system of repartimientos or encomiendas which was afterward to work such cruel mischief among the conquered. But the tide of court favor seemed to have turned against Columbus. In October, 1495, Juan Aguada arrived at Isabella, with an open commission from

8 The will of Diego Mendez, one of Columbus' most trusted followers, states that the Governor of Xaragua in seven months burned and hanged eighty-four chiefs, including the Queen of San Domingo.

their Catholic Majesties, to inquire into the circumstances of his rule; and much interest and recrimination followed. Columbus found that there was no time to be lost in returning home; he appointed his brother Bartholomew "adelantado" of the island, and on March 10, 1496, he quitted Española in the Niña. The vessel, after a protracted and perilous voyage, reached Cadiz on June 11, 1496. The Admiral landed in great dejection, wearing the costume of a Franciscan. Reassured, however, by the reception of his sovereigns, he asked at once for eight ships more, two to be sent to the colony with supplies and six to be put under his orders for new discoveries. The request was not immediately granted, as the Spanish exchequer was not then well supplied. But principally owing to the interest of the Queen, an agreement was come to similar to that of 1492, which was now confirmed. By this royal patent, moreover, a tract of land in Española, of fifty leagues by twenty, was made over to him. He was offered a dukedom or a marquisate at his pleasure; for three years he was to receive an eighth of the gross and a tenth of the net profits on each voyage, the right of creating a mayorazgo or perpetual entail of titles and estates was granted him, and on June 24th his two sons were received into Isabella's service as pages. Meanwhile, however, the preparing of the fleet proceeded slowly, and it was not till May 30, 1498, that he and his six ships set sail.

From San Lucar he steered for Gomera, in the Canaries, and thence dispatched three of his ships to San Domingo. He next proceeded to the Cape Verde Islands, which he quitted on July 4th. On the 31st of the same month, being greatly in need of water, and fearing that no land lay westward as they had hoped, Columbus had turned his ship's head north, when Alonzo Perez, a mariner of Huelva, saw land about fifteen leagues to the southwest. It was crowned

with three hilltops, and so, when the sailors had sung the Salve Regina, the Admiral named it Trinidad, which name it yet bears. On Wednesday, August 1st, he beheld for the first time, in the mainland of South America, the continent he had sought so long. It seemed to him but an insignificant island, and he called it Zeta. Sailing westward, next day he saw the Gulf of Paria, which was named by him the Golfo de la Belena, and was borne into it—an immense risk -on the ridge of breakers formed by the meeting with the sea of the great rivers that empty themselves, all swollen with rain, into the ocean. For many days he coasted the continent, esteeming as islands the several projections he saw and naming them accordingly; nor was it until he had looked on and considered the immense volume of fresh water poured out through the embouchure of the river now called the Orinoco, that he concluded that the so-called archipelago must be in very deed a great continent.

Unfortunately at this time he was suffering intolerably from gout and ophthalmia; his ships were crazy; and he was anxious to inspect the infant colony whence he had been absent so long. And so, after touching at and naming the Island of Margarita, he bore away to the northeast, and on August 30th the fleet dropped anchor off Isabella.

He found that affairs had not prospered well in his absence. By the vigor and activity of the adelantado, the whole island had been reduced under Spanish sway, but at the expense of the colonists. Under the leadership of a certain Roldan, a bold and unprincipled adventurer, they had risen in revolt, and Columbus had to compromise matters in order to restore peace. Roldan retained his office; such of his followers as chose to remain in the island were gratified with repartimientos of land and labor; and some fifteen, choosing to return to Spain, were enriched with a number of

slaves, and sent home in two ships, which sailed in the early part of October, 1499.

Five ship-loads of Indians had been deported to Spain some little time before. On arrival of these living cargoes at Seville, the Queen, the stanch and steady friend of Columbus, was moved with compassion and indignation. No one, she declared, had authorized him to dispose of her vassals in any such manner; and proclamations at Seville, Granada, and other chief places ordered (June 20, 1499) the instant liberation and return of all the last gang of Indians. In addition to this, the ex-colonists had become incensed against Columbus and his brothers. They were wont to parade their grievances in the very court-yards of the Alhambra; to surround the King, when he came forth, with complaints and reclamations; to insult the discoverer's young sons with shouts and jeers. There was no doubt that the colony itself, whatever the cause, had not prospered so well as might have been desired. Historians do not hesitate to aver that Columbus' over-colored and unreliable statements as to the amount of gold to be found there were the chief causes of discontent. And, on the whole, it is not surprising that Ferdinand, whose support to Columbus had never been very hearty, should about this time have determined to suspend him. Accordingly, on March 21, 1499, Francisco de Bobadilla was ordered to "ascertain what persons had raised themselves against justice in the Island of Española, and to proceed against them according to law." On May 21st the government of the island was conferred on him, and he was accredited with an order that all arms and fortresses should be handed over to him; and on May 26th he received a letter, for delivery to Columbus, stating that the bearer would "speak certain things to him" on the part of their Highnesses, and praying him to "give faith and cre