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 the Spaniards, whom he had left behind on his previous voyage, would have collected. All these hopes had been rudely dispelled. The most extravagant expectations having been entertained in Spain, Columbus pictured to himself the disappointment of his sovereigns and of the nation when his fleet returned empty, and conveyed to an expectant and excited people the intelligence of the disasters which had befallen the first colonists in a country of such fabled wealth and unbounded resources.

However, in the twelve ships which were despatched to Spain, the remaining five having been retained for his own purposes and for those of the newly-established colony, Columbus sent home some specimens of gold, and such fruits or plants as appeared to be either curious or valuable, expressing his own confident and sanguine anticipations of soon being able to make valuable shipments of precious metals, drugs, and spices. "Without penetrating into the interior of the country," he remarks, "we have found spots showing so many indications of various spices, as naturally to suggest the hope of the best results for the future. The same holds good with respect to the gold mines; for two parties only who were sent out in different directions to discover them, and who, because they had few people with them, remained out but a short time, found, nevertheless, a great number of rivers, whose sands contained this precious metal in such quantity, that each man took