interest. It is but just to add, that the sovereigns did not accord with his ideas, but ordered that the Caribs should be converted like the rest of the islanders; a command which emanated from the merciful heart of Isabella, who ever showed herself the benign protectress of the Indians.

The fleet put to sea on the 2d of February, 1494. Though it brought back no wealth to Spain, yet expectation was kept alive by the sanguine letter of Columbus, and the specimens of gold which he transmitted: his favorable accounts were corroborated by letters from Friar Boyle, Doctor Chanca, and other persons of credibility, and by the personal reports of Gorvalan. The sordid calculations of petty spirits were as yet overruled by the enthusiasm of generous minds, captivated by the lofty nature of these enterprises. There was something wonderfully grand in the idea of thus introducing new races of animals and plants, of building cities, extending colonies, and sowing the seeds of civilization and of enlightened empire in this beautiful but savage world. It struck the minds of learned and classical men with admiration, filling them with pleasant dreams and reveries, and seeming to realise the poetical pictures of the olden time. "Columbus," says old Peter Martyr, "has begun to build a city, as he has lately written to me, and to sow our seeds and propagate our animals! Who of us shall now speak with wonder of Saturn, Ceres, and Triptolemus, travelling about the earth to spread new inventions among mankind? Or of the Phoenicians, who built Tyre or Sidon? Or of

the Tyrians themselves, whose roving desires led them to migrate into foreign lands, to build new cities, and establish new communities?" 1

Such were the comments of enlightened and benevolent men, who hailed with enthusiasm the discovery of the New World, not for the wealth it would bring to Europe, but for the field it would open for glorious and benevolent enterprises, and the blessings and improvements of civilized life, which it would widely dispense through barbarous and uncultivated regions.

1 Letter 153 to Pomponius Lætus.

NOTE.

Isabella at the present day is quite overgrown with forests, in the midst of which are still to be seen partly standing, the pillars of the church, some remains of the king's storehouses, and part of the residence of Columbus, all built of hewn stone. The small fortress is also a prominent ruin; and a little north of it is a circular pillar about ten feet high and as much in diameter, of solid masonry; nearly entire; which appears to have had a wooden gallery or battlement round the top for the convenience of room, and in the centre of which was planted the flag-staff. Having discovered the remains of an iron clamp imbedded in the stone, which served to secure the flag-staff itself, I tore it out, and now consign to you this curious relic of the first foothold of civilization in the New World, after it has been exposed to the elements nearly three hundred and fifty years. From the Letter of S. T. Heneken,

Esq.

HE embryo city of Isabella was rapidly assuming a form. A dry stone wall surrounded it, to protect it from any sudden attack of the natives; although the most friendly disposition was evinced by the Indians of the vicinity, who brought supplies of their simple articles of food, and gave them in exchange for European trifles. On the day of the Epiphany, the 6th of January, the church being sufficiently completed, high mass was celebrated with great pomp and ceremony, by Friar Boyle and the twelve ecclesiastics. The affairs of the settlement being thus apparently in a regular train, Columbus, though still confined by indisposition, began to make arrangements for his contemplated expedition to the mountains of Cibao, when an unexpected disturbance in his little community for a time engrossed his

attention.

The sailing of the fleet to Spain had been a melancholy sight to many, whose terms of enlist

LIFE AND VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS. 397

ment compelled them to remain on the island. Disappointed in their expectations of immediate wealth, disgusted with the labors imposed on them, and appalled by the maladies prevalent throughout the community, they began to look with horror upon the surrounding wilderness, as destined to be the grave of their hopes and of themselves. When the last sail disappeared, they felt as if completely severed from their country; and the tender recollections of home, which had been checked for a time by the novelty and bustle around them, rushed with sudden force upon their minds. To return to Spain became their ruling idea, and the same want of reflection which had hurried them into the enterprise, without inquiring into its real nature, now prompted them to extricate themselves from it, by any means however desperate.

Where popular discontents prevail, there is seldom wanting some daring spirit to give them a dangerous direction. One Bernal Diaz de Pisa, a man of some importance, who had held a civil office about the court, had come out with the expedition as comptroller: he seems to have presumed upon his official powers, and to have had early differences with the admiral. Disgusted with his employment in the colony, he soon made a faction among the discontented, and proposed that they should take advantage of the indisposition of Columbus, to seize upon some or all of the five ships in the harbor, and return in them to Spain. It would be easy to justify their clandestine return, by preferring a complaint

against the admiral, representing the fallacy of his enterprises, and accusing him of gross deceptions and exaggerations in his accounts of the countries he had discovered. It is probable that some of these people really considered him culpable of the charges thus fabricated against him; for, in the disappointment of their avaricious hopes, they overlooked the real value of those fertile islands, which were to enrich nations by the produce of their soil. Every country was sterile and unprofitable in their eyes, that did not immediately teem with gold. Though they had continual proofs, in the specimens brought by the natives to the settlement, or furnished to Ojeda and Gorvalan, that the rivers and mountains in the interior abounded with ore, yet even these daily proofs were falsified in their eyes. One Fermin Cedo, a wrong-headed and obstinate man, who had come out as assayer and purifier of metals, had imbibed the same prejudice against the expedition with Bernal Diaz. He pertinaciously insisted that there was no gold in the island; or at least that it was found in such inconsiderable quantities as not to repay the search. He declared that the large grains of virgin ore brought by the natives had been melted; that they had been the slow accumulation of many years, having remained a long time in the families of the Indians, and handed down from generation to generation; which in many instances was probably the case. Other specimens, of a large size, he pronounced of a very inferior quality, and debased with brass by the natives.

The