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 106, they arrived at Cuba, and afterwards at Hayti (St. Domingo). Here, however, the Santa Maria sank, and Columbus determined to return, to bring the good news, after leaving some of his men in a fort at Hayti. The return journey was made in the Niña in even shorter time to the Azores, but afterwards severe storms arose, and it was not till the 15th March, 1493, that he reached Palos, after an absence of seven and a half months, during which everybody thought that he and his ships had disappeared.

He was naturally received with great enthusiasm by the Spaniards, and after a solemn entry at Barcelona he presented to Ferdinand and Isabella the store of gold and curiosities carried by some of the natives of the islands he had visited. They immediately set about fitting out a much larger fleet of seven vessels, which started from Cadiz, 25th September, 1493. He took a more southerly course, but again reached the islands now known as the West Indies. On visiting Hayti he found the fort destroyed, and no traces of the men he had left there. It is needless for our purposes to go through the miserable squabbles which occurred on this and his subsequent voyages, which resulted in Columbus's return to Spain in chains and disgrace. It is only necessary for us to say that in his third voyage, in 1498, he touched on Trinidad, and saw the coast of South America, which he supposed to be the region of the Terrestrial Paradise, This was placed by the mediaeval maps at the extreme east of the Old World. Only on his fourth voyage, in 1502, did he actually touch the mainland, coasting along the shores of Central America in the neighbourhood of Panama. After many disappointments he died 20th