With the departure of this second expedition for the "western lands" Columbus's brief season of glory ended. Neither home-comings nor departures would ever be the same for him again; for behind him he left a few jealous enemies, potent to do him harm, and with him he took men of such unstable character that more enmity was sure to spring up. These last he held with a firm hand as long as the voyage lasted; Christopher could always control men at sea, but on land it was another matter. Even though he might have clear notions of the difficulty of planting a colony in new territory, how would these adventurers, and these high- born young gentlemen who had never worked, and these hundred wretched stowaways who, after Columbus had refused to take them, had hidden in the vessels until well out to sea—how would all these behave when it was time to fell trees, build houses, dig ditches, and cut roads? And then again, good Admiral, why did you make the great mistake of bringing no women colonists with you? How could men found homes and work when there were no wives and little ones to be housed and fed?

Of the better sort who accompanied this second expedition there were a few, but only a few, solid, reliable individuals whose society must have been a comfort to the Admiral; among them, the faithful Juan de la Cosa, the Palos pilot; James Columbus, or as the Spaniards called him, Diego Colon, faithful to his celebrated brother, but unfortunately somewhat stupid; Antonio de las Casas, father of the young priest who later became the champion of the Indians and who wrote Columbus's biography; Juan Ponce de Leon, an intrepid aristocrat who was destined to discover Florida; and Doctor Chanca, a physician and botanist who was to write an account of the vegetables and fruits of the western lands. These vegetables included the "good tasting roots either boiled or baked" which we know as potatoes. Most daring of all the company was a young nobleman named Alonzo de Ojeda. Alonzo was a real adventurer, willing to face any danger or hazard.

Columbus, on leaving Spain, again headed for the Canaries, this time for the purpose of taking on sheep, goats, swine, and other domestic animals to stock the new lands; then off again for the real business of crossing the Atlantic. Gold being the thought uppermost in every mind—even in the mind of the Admiral—the rudders were set southwest for the Caribbean Islands.

These, the natives of Haiti had told him, were full of gold; at least, that is how Columbus interpreted the signs the Haitians made when he asked for gold; and so, instead of hurrying to cheer up those forty men he left at La Navidad, he steered to a point considerably south of Haiti and reached the Caribbeans precisely; which, it will be seen, was a far greater test of nautical skill than merely to sail anywhere into the west, as he had done on the first voyage.

The sea nearly all the way across was deliciously smooth and the trade wind soft and steady; only once was there bad weather; very bad while it lasted and very terrifying to those who had never before been at sea; but it happened that, during the storm, the electric phenomenon known as the Light of St. Elmo was seen over the rigging of the Mari-ga- lan'te, the Admiral's ship, and all that horde of superstitious men were reassured and considered it a sign that the expedition was divine protection.

Yet a little later, when the water supply ran low, and when there were so many leaks in the vessels that the pumps were working constantly, they began to grumble. But Columbus, who was a magician at reckoning sea distance, laughed at their alarm and said to them, "Drink all the water you like; we shall reach land in forty-eight hours." Next day no land appeared, but still he spoke confidently and ordered them to take in sail and slow down. That was at sunset, on Saturday, November 2; Sunday morning, November 3, the sun rose on a beautiful verdant island only a few leagues ahead of them. The magician had fairly scented land from afar!

This little island, Dominica he called it, had no harbor; but what did that matter since another island lay alongside it, to the north. Here they landed and took possession in the name of Spain—not only of the one island but of five or six more which were visible from a little hill. On this spot, which they christened Marigalante, there were no inhabitants; so, after waiting only long enough to feast on new, luscious fruits, they sailed to the next island, which they called Guadaloupe.

And here the Spaniards began to learn what real savagery meant. Only women and children appeared to inhabit the island, and these fled inland at the strangers' approach. This afforded an excellent opportunity for the visitors to look into the native huts and see how these wild people lived. Hammocks of netting, earthenware dishes, and woven cotton cloth were found; but along with these rudiments of civilization something else was found that made the Europeans look at each other in horror— human bones left from a recent feast!

The next day they landed at a different island, for these Caribbeans all lie close together. Here the deplorable business of kidnapping began again, and quite legitimately, the Spaniards thought, for were not the miserable creatures cannibals? A young boy and three women were captured, and from these Columbus learned that the people of the two islands he first visited, along with a third he had not yet come to, had formed a league among themselves to make war on the remainder of the islands. That was why all the men happened to be absent at the time of the Spanish landing. They had gone off in their canoes to capture women as wives, and men and children to be killed and eaten!

The fact that the warriors of this island were absent emboldened a party of nine Spaniards to penetrate inland in search of gold; secretly, too, without the Admiral's knowledge or consent. Night came and the nine men had not returned. The crew were naturally anxious to leave the island before its man-eating population returned, but the majority were willing to await their lost companions. Next day Alonzo de Ojeda, who said he was not afraid of cannibals, led a search party clear across the island, but without success; not until the third anxious day had passed did the gold seekers get back to the ship. They had paid dearly for their adventure, having been utterly lost in a tangled forest, without food, torn and scratched by brambles, and fearing all the time that the fleet would give them up for dead and sail without them.

A week having now been passed among the cannibals, Columbus decided to give up gold-hunting and go and greet the colony at La Navidad. His captives told him that the mainland lay south, and had he not grown anxious about the men he had left the year before, he might have sailed south and found South America; but instead he headed north, stopping sometimes at intermediate islands. Once again they tried capturing some natives whom they saw on the shore, but these Carib women were wonderful archers, and a number of them who managed to upset their canoe and swim for liberty shot arrows as they swam. Two of the Spaniards were thus wounded.

Not until the 22d of November did the fleet come in sight of Haiti— about a month later than if they had come direct from the Canaries. Many islands, including Porto Rico, had been discovered and named before they finally touched Espanola and began sailing along its northern coast to where the Santa Maria had been wrecked. Although no gold had been found, all the men on the boats were confident that quantities of it would have been collected during the year by the men at La Navidad; and so great content reigned on all the ships.

While the fleet was still some distance away, one of the captured Haiti Indians who had made the voyage to Spain and back was sent ashore to tell Chief Guacanagari and the colony of the Admiral's return. This Indian messenger, having been converted to Christianity and having learned to speak Spanish, was expected to be of great use in the present expedition. Before sending him ashore they dressed him handsomely and covered him with showy trinkets that would impress his countrymen. But the real impression was to come from his telling his tribe what a powerful people the Spaniards were and how advisable it would be to receive them kindly. This attended to, the converted Indian was to rejoin the ship at La Navidad, where Columbus would richly reward him for his services. Our simple Columbus, who loved Spain's civilization and power, entertained great hopes of the Indian's mission, and never suspected that this savage preferred his native island; and that, once he set foot on it, he would never again risk himself in the presence of white men!

The Admiral next stopped at the mouth of a stream where, on his previous voyage, he had heard of gold. The party who went ashore to search for it soon came back aghast. They had found, instead, two bodies lashed to a stake in the form of a cross. The men were hardly recognizable, but the scraps of clothing looked Spanish. The ominous news ran from ship to ship and gloom began to settle over the entire expedition.

Columbus, much disturbed, hastened on to La Navidad. On approaching the spot his crew fired a cannon and shouted, but no response came. They landed; but it was to find the fortress a blackened ruin and the whole settlement destroyed. Even the stout-hearted Admiral was now utterly dejected.

After a spell of grieving came a ray of hope. Perhaps Diego de Arana and his other friends were not all dead; perhaps the treacherous natives had merely driven them off. He had told Diego to keep the gold they gathered hidden in a well, so that, in case of attack, it would be safe; and off Columbus started to hunt for the well. No amount of searching revealed it; instead, another painful sight, a few dead Spaniards; that was all.

Inland, far away from his original abode, the king was found who had so kindly helped Columbus when the Santa Maria was wrecked—King Guacanagari. From him came the only account ever obtained of the fate of the colony; a true account apparently, for later investigations confirmed it. The Spaniards, with the exception of their leader, Arana, had behaved very badly toward each other and toward the natives. They wanted wives, and had stolen all the young women from Guacanagari's village and then had fought with each other for the prettiest. Having obtained wives, some deserted the little European colony and went to live as savages among the Indians. Others had gone to find the gold mines, which quest took them to the eastern part of the island where the fierce chief Caonabo ruled. So enraged was this chief at their invasion that he not only killed them, but descended upon their compatriots at La Navidad, and attacked them one night when all was still and peaceful. Guacanagari heard the savage war whoops, and out of friendship for the Admiral he tried to drive off the assailants, but he himself was wounded and his house was burned. The Spanish fort was fired; the inmates rushed out, only to be butchered or driven into the sea and drowned. Not one man escaped.

Thus ended Columbus's second trip westward across the Atlantic. What a landing! Blackened ruins, dead bodies, the enmity of the natives, and— no gold; all this where he had hoped to be greeted by happy, prosperous men. Here were the first fruits of his great discovery; here the first sample of Spanish ability at colonizing; here the first specimen of what the white man could do in a new and peaceful land; and our great Admiral, thinking of the mixed band he had brought out from Spain to colonize, dropped his head and covered his face with his hands.

All were anxious to leave the scene of this tragedy; but before they left, the native king, Guacanagari, who appeared as friendly as ever, expressed a desire to visit Columbus's ship. While on it he managed to talk with the Caribbean Indians who were aboard. That night the captives, including a woman whom the Spaniards had named Catalina, made their escape and were picked up in waiting canoes. Next day when Columbus sent to Guacanagari to demand their return, the king and his whole village had disappeared. It would appear that this simple savage had grown into a far shrewder person than his European host since that Christmas night when the Santa Maria ran aground.

La Navidad having disappeared, the next concern was to found another settlement. A point some distance east was chosen, where a beautiful green vega, or plain, stretched far back from the shore. The city was to be called Isabella, in honor of the queen who had made possible the discovery of the new lands. Streets were laid out, a fine church and a storehouse were planned to be built of stone, and many private houses, to be built of wood or adobe or any convenient material, were to be constructed. All this was very fine in plan; but when the men were called upon to do the hard manual labor that is required for building a town and planting gardens and fields in an utter wilderness, many of them murmured. They had not come to do hard work, they had come to pick up nuggets of gold. Besides, many were ill after the long diet of salted food and musty bread; even Columbus himself fell ill upon landing, and could not rise from his bed for weeks; and although all this time he continued to direct the work of town building, it progressed but slowly.

So there lay the great Christopher Columbus, bedridden and empty-handed, at the moment when he hoped to be sending back to Spain the gold and other precious substances collected by the men of his first settlement. What should he write to the sovereigns waiting for news? He could not bear to write the sad truth and tell them how all his hopes, and theirs, had come to naught. If only he could have known, or surmised, that his islands fringed a magnificent new continent that had never even been dreamed of by civilized man, his worry might have ceased; for surely a man who had found a new world for Spain need not have found gold besides; but he knew nothing of the continent as yet; and remembering the extravagant promises made in Barcelona, he decided to postpone writing the letter home to Spain until he should make another attempt to find gold.

Accordingly, he sent two expeditions to different parts of the island to find the mines which, according to his understanding of the natives' sign language, must exist. Alonzo de Ojeda and the other captain he sent out returned each with a little gold; and this slight find was sufficient to set Columbus's fervid imagination at work again. He sent a rosy account of the island to the monarchs, and repeated his former promise to soon send home shiploads of gold and other treasures. And no wonder that he and so many others wished for gold; for it is written in his journal, "Gold is the most precious of all substances; gold constitutes treasure; he who possesses it has all the needs of this world as well as the price for rescuing souls from Purgatory and introducing them into Paradise." If gold could do all that, who would not try to possess it?

But so far as his letter to the monarchs went, Columbus knew, even while writing it, that real gold and the promise of gold were two very different things. His promises could never fill up the empty hold of the ship that was going back to Spain; and so, failing the rich cargo which the men of La Navidad were to have gathered, Columbus bethought himself of some other way in which his discoveries might bring money to the Spanish Crown. The plan he hit upon was the plan of a sick, disappointed, desperate man, as will be seen from a portion of his letter. The letter, intended for the sovereigns, was addressed, as was the custom, to their secretary.

"Considering what need we have for cattle and beasts of burden … their Highnesses might authorize a suitable number of caravels to come here every year to bring over said cattle and provisions. These cattle might be paid for with slaves taken from among the Caribbeans, who are a wild people fit for any work, well built and very intelligent; and who, when they have got rid of the cruel habits to which they have been accustomed, will be better than any other kind of slaves."

Horrible, all this, we say, but it was the fifteenth century. Slavery had existed for ages, and many still believed in it, for men like the good Las Casas were few. Moreover, Columbus was tormented by a feeling of not having "made good." He had promised his sovereigns all sorts of wealth, and instead he had been able to collect only an insignificant amount of gold trinkets on Haiti. Desperate for some other source of wealth, in an evil moment he advised slave-catching.

Besides considering himself to have fallen short in the royal eyes, he was hounded by the complaints and taunts of the men who had accompanied him. They hated work, so he tried to appease them by giving them authority to enslave the natives; and, as our good Las Casas wisely remarks, "Since men never fall into a single error … without a greater one by and by following," so it fell out that the Spaniards were cruel masters and the natives revolted; to subdue them harsher and harsher measures were used; not till most of them had been killed did the remaining ones yield submissively.