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 COLUMBUS

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COLUMBUS

brother's absence, much less with the admiral himself upon the latter's return. Soon after, reports of im- portant gold discoveries came from a remote quarter of the island accompanied by specimens. The arrival of Agiiado convinced Columbus of the necessity for his appearance in Spain and that new discoveries of gold would strengthen his position there. So he fitted out two ships, one for himself and one for Aguado, placing in them two hundred dissatisfied colonists, a captive Indian chief (who died on the voyage), and thirty In- dian prisoners, and set sail for Spain on 10 March, 1196, leaving his brother Bartholomew at Isabella as trmporary governor. As intercourse between Spain and the Indies w;is now carried on at almost regular in- iirvals Bartholomew was in communication with the mot her country and was at least tacitly recognized as liis lirother's substitute in the government of the In- dies, t'olumbus reached Cadiz 11 June, 149(5.

The story of his landing is quite dramatic. He is re- ported to have gone ashore, clothed in the Franciscan i;arb, and to have manifested a dejection which was wholly uncalled for. His health, it is true, was greatly impaired, and his companions bore the marks of great physical suffering. The impression created by their ajipearance was of course not favourable and tended to ronfirm the reports of the opponents of Colum.bus about the n,it\ire of the new country. This, as well as the disappointing results of the search for precious metals, did not fail to have its influence. The mon- archs saw that the first enthusiastic reports had been exaggerated and that the enterprise while possibly hicrative in the end, would entail large expeiulitures for some time to come. Bishoi) Fonseca, who was at the head of colonial affairs, urged that great caiition sliould be exercised. What was imputed to Bishop I'onseca as jealousy was only the sincere desire of an lionest functionary to guard the interests of the Oown without blocking the way of an enthusiastic but some- what visionary genius who had been unsuccessful as an .administrator. Later expressions (1505) of Columbus indicate that his personal relations to Fonseca were at I he time far from unfriendly. But the fact that Col- umlMis had jirojiosed the enslaving of American na- tives ami actually sent a number of them over to Spain li.ul alienated the sympathy of the queen to a certain dei;ree, and thus weakened his position at court.

N'everth<'less, it was not difficult for Columbus to or- L;iiiize a third expedition. Columbus started on hi.s third voyage from Seville with si.x vessels on :iO May. I l!(8. He directed his course more southward than !»'fore, owing to reports of a great land lying west and ~i iiith of the .\ntilles and his belief that it w.as the con- liiient of .Asia. He touched at the Island of Madeira, and later at Gomera, one of the Canarj' Islands (q. v.), whence he sent to Haiti three vessels. Sailing south- « ard, he went to the Cape Verde Islands and, turning llience almost due west, arrived on 31 July, 1498, in sit;ht of what is now the Island of Trinidad which was so named by him. Opposite, on the other side of a tiirlmlent channel, lay the lowlands of north-eastern South .America. Alarmed by the turmoil cau.sed by t he meeting of the waters of the Orinoco (which emp- lies through several channels into the .Atlantic oppo- site Trinidad) with the Guiana current, Columbus kept close to the southern shore of Trinidad as far as i I s south-we.stern extremity, where he found the water still more turbulent. He therefore gave that place the name of Boca del Drago, or Dragon's Mouth. Be- fore venturing into the seething waters Columbu.s (Tossed over to the mainland and cast anchor. He was under the impression that this was an island, but a \iLst stream of fresh water gave evidence of a conti- nent. Columbus landed, he and his crew being thus I lie first Europeans to set foot on South .American soil. I he natives were friendly and'gladly exchanged pearls 1 ir European trinkets. This discovery of pearls in \merican waters was important and very welcome. IV.-IO

A few days later the admiral, setting sail again, was borne by the currents safely to the Island of Margar- ita, where he foimd the natives fishing for pearls, of which he obtained three bags by barter.

Some of the letters of Columbus concerning his third voyage are written in a tone of despondency. Owing to his physical condition, he viewed things with a dis- content far from justifiable. And, as already said, his views of the geographical situation were somewhat fanciful. The great outpour opposite Trinidad he justly attributed to the emptying of a mighty river coming from the west, a river, so large that only a con- tinent could afford it space. In this he was right, but in his eyes that continent was Asia, and the sources of that river must be on the highest point of the globe. He was confirmed in this idea by his belief that Trini- dad was nearer the Equator than it actually is and that near the Equator the highest land on earth should be found. He thought al.so that the sources of the Orinoco lay in the Earthly Paradise and that the great river was one of the four streams that according to Scripture flowed from the Garden of Eden. He had no accurate knowledge of the form of the earth, and conjectured that it was pear-shaped.

Oa 15 August, fearing a lack of supplies, and suffer- ing severely from what his biographers call gout and from impaired eyesight, he left his new discoveries and steered for Haiti. On 19 August he sighted that is- land some distance west of where the present capital of the Republic of Santo Domingo now stands. During his ab.sence his brother Bartholomew had abandoned Isabella and established his head-quarters at Santo Domingo so called after his father Domenico. During the ab.sence of Columbus events on Haiti had been far from satisfactory. His brother Bartholomew, who was then known as the adelantado, had to contend with several Indian outbreaks, which he subdued partly by force, partly by wise temporizing. These outbreaks were, at least in part, due to a change in the class of settlers by whom the colony was reinforced. The results of the first .settlement far from justified the buoyant hopes based on the exaggerated reports of the first voyage, and the pendulum of public opinion swung back to the opposite extreme. The clamour of opposition to Columbus in the colonies and the dis- couraging reports greatly increased in Spain the disappointment with the new territorial acquisitions. That the climate was not healthful seemed proved by the appearance of Columbus and his companions on his return from the second voyage. Hence no one was willing to go to the newly discovered country, and coinicts, suspects, and iloubtful characters in general who were glad to escape the regulations of justice were the only reinforcements that could be obtained for the colony on Hispaniola. As a result there were con- flicts with the aborigines, sedition in the colony, and finally open rebellion against the authority of the ade- lantado and his brother Diego. Columbus and his brothers were Italians, and this fact told against them among the malcontents and lower oflieials, but that it influenced the monarchs and the court authorities is a gratuitous charge.

As long as they had not a common leader Bartholo- mew had little to fear from the malcontents, who sepa- rate<l from the rest of the colony, and formed a settle- ment apart. They abused the Indians, thus ca\ising almost uninterrupted trouble. However, they soon found a leader in the person of one Roldan, to whom the admiral had entrusted a prominent office in the colony. There must have been .some cause for com- plaint against the government of Bartholomew and Diego, else Roldan could not have .so increased the number of his followers as to make himself formidable to (he brothers, undermining their authority at their own head-quarters and even among the garrison of .Santo Domingo. Bartholomew was forced to com- Ijroraise on unfavourable terms. So, when the ad-