which every year increased in rancour, and which his official station enabled him to gratify in the most invidious manner. Enjoying the unmerited favour of the sovereigns, he maintained a control of Indian affairs for about thirty years. He must undoubtedly have possessed talents for business, to ensure such perpetuity of office; but he was malignant and vindictive, and, in the gratification of his private resentments, often obstructed the national enterprises, and heaped wrongs and sorrows on the heads of the most illustrious of the early dis

coverers.

CHAPTER XVII.

Departure of Columbus on his second Voyage of Discovery-Arrival at Hispaniola.

[1493.]

THE departure of Columbus on his second voyage of discovery presented a brilliant contrast to his gloomy embarkation at Palos. On the 25th of September, at the dawn of day, the bay of Cadiz was whitened by his fleet. There were three large ships of heavy burden, and fourteen caravals. The number of persons permitted to embark had originally been limited to one thousand; but many volunteers were allowed to inlist without pay, others got on board of the ships by stealth, so that eventually about fifteen hundred set sail in the fleet. All were full of animation, and took a gay leave of their friends, anticipating a prosperous voyage and triumphant return. Instead of being regarded by the populace as devoted men, bound upon a dark and desperate enterprise, they were contemplated with envy, as favoured mortals destined to golden regions and delightful climes, where nothing but wealth, and wonder, and enjoyment awaited them. Columbus moved among the throng accompanied by his sons, Diego and Fernando, the eldest but a stripling, who had come to

witness his departure. Wherever he passed, every eye followed him with admiration, and every tongue extolled and blessed him. Before sunrise the whole fleet was under weigh; the weather was serene and propitious, and as the populace watched their parting sails, brightening in the morning beams, they looked forward to their joyful return, laden with the treasures of the new world.

Columbus touched at the Canary islands, where he took in wood and water, and procured live stock, plants, and seeds, to be propagated in Hispaniola. On the 13th of October he lost sight of the island of Ferro, and, favoured by the trade winds, was borne pleasantly along, shaping his course to the south-west, hoping to fall in with the islands of the Caribs, of which he had received such interesting accounts in his first voyage. At the dawn of day of the 2d of November, a lofty island was descried to the west, to which he gave the name of Dominica, from having discovered it on Sunday. As the ships moved gently onward, other islands rose to sight, one after another, covered with forests, and enlivened by flights of parrots and other tropical birds, while the whole air was sweetened by the fragrance of the breezes which passed over them. These were a part of that beautiful cluster of islands called the Antilles, which sweep almost in a semicircle from the eastern end of Porto Rico, to the coast of Paria on the southern continent, forming a kind of barrier between the main ocean and the Caribbean sea.

In one of those islands, to which they gave the name of Guadaloupe, the Spaniards first met with the delicious anana, or pine apple. They found

K

also, to their surprise, the sternpost of a European vessel, which caused much speculation, but which, most probably, was the fragment of some wreck, borne across the Atlantic by the constant current which accompanies the trade winds. What most struck their attention, however, and filled them with horror, was the sight of human limbs hanging in the houses, as if curing for provisions, and others broiling or roasting at the fire. Columbus now

concluded that he had arrived at the islands of the cannibals, or Caribs, the objects of his search; and he was confirmed in this belief by several captives taken by his men. These Caribs were the most ferocious people of these seas; making roving expeditions in their canoes to the distance of one hundred and fifty leagues, invading the islands, ravaging the villages, making slaves of the youngest and handsomest females, and carrying off the men to be killed and eaten.

While at this island, a party of eight men, headed by Diego Marque, captain of one of the caravals, strayed into the woods, and did not return at night to the ships. The admiral was extremely uneasy at their absence, fearing some evil from the ferocious disposition of the islanders: on the following day, parties were sent in quest of them, each with a trumpeter, to sound calls and signals, and guns were fired from the ships, but all to no purpose. The parties returned in the evening, wearied by a fruitless search, with many dismal stories of the traces of cannibalism they had met with.

Alonzo de Ojeda, the daring young cavalier who has already been mentioned, then set off with forty men into the interior of the island, beating up the

forests, and making the mountains and valleys resound with trumpets and fire-arms, but with no better success. Their search was rendered excessively toilsome by the closeness and luxuriance of the forests, and by the windings and doublings of the streams, which were so frequent, that Ojeda declared he had waded through twenty-six rivers within the distance of six leagues. He gave the most enthusiastic accounts of the country. The forests, he said, were filled with aromatic trees and shrubs, which he had no doubt would be found to produce precious gums and spices.

Several days elapsed without tidings of the stragglers, and Columbus, giving them up for lost, was on the point of sailing, when they made their way back to the fleet, haggard and exhausted. For several days they had been bewildered in the mazes of a forest so dense as almost to exclude the day. Some of them had climbed trees in hopes of getting a sight of the stars by which to govern their course, but the height of the branches shut out all view of the heavens. They were almost reduced to despair, when they fortunately arrived at the sea shore, and keeping along it, came to where the fleet was at anchor.

After leaving Guadaloupe, Columbus touched at other of the Caribbean islands. At one of them, which he named Santa Cruz, a ship's boat, sent on shore for water, had an encounter with a canoe, in which were a few Indians, two of whom were females. The women fought as desperately as the men, and plied their bows with such vigour, that one of them sent an arrow through a Spanish buckler, and wounded the soldier who bore it. The