In the harbor of Cadiz Columbus found three caravels, commanded by Pedro Alonzo Niño, on the point of sailing with supplies for the colony. Nearly a year had elapsed without any relief of the kind; four caravels which had sailed in the preceding January having been lost on the coast of the Peninsula.* Having read the royal letters and dispatches of which Niño was the bearer, and being informed of the wishes of the sovereigns, as well as of the state of the public mind, Columbus wrote by this opportunity, urging the Adelantado to endeavor, by every means, to bring the island into a peaceful and productive state, appeasing all discontents and commotions, and seizing and sending to Spain all caciques, or their subjects, who should be concerned in the deaths of any of the colonists. He recommended the most unremitting diligence in exploring and working the mines recently discovered on the river Hayna, and that a place should be chosen in the neighborhood, and a seaport founded. Pedro Alonzo Niño set sail with the three caravels on the 17th of June. Tidings of the arrival of Columbus having reached the sovereigns, he received a gracious letter from them, dated at Almazen, 12th July, 1496; congratulating him on his safe return, and inviting him to court when he should have recovered from the fatigues of his voyage. The kind terms in which this letter was couched were calculated to reassure the heart of Columbus, who, ever since the mission of the arrogant Aguado, had considered himself out of favor with the sovereigns, and fallen into disgrace. As a proof of the dejection of his spirits, we are told that when he made his appearance this time in Spain, he was clad in a humble garb, resembling in form and color the habit of a Franciscan monk, simply girded with a cord, and that he had suffered his beard to grow like the brethren of that order.† This was probably in fulfilment of some penitential vow made in a moment of danger or despondency-a custom prevalent in those days, and frequently observed by Columbus. It betokened, however, much humility and depression of spirit, and afforded a striking contrast to his appearance on his former triumphant return. He was doomed, in fact, to yield repeated examples of the reverses to which those are subject who have once launched from the safe shores of obscurity on the fluctuating waves of popular opinion.

On his

However indifferent Columbus might be to his own personal appearance, he was anxious to keep alive the interest in his discoveries, fearing continually that the indifference awakening toward him might impede their accomplishment. way to Burgos, therefore, where the sovereigns were expected, he made a studious display of the curiosities and treasures which he had brought from the New World. Among these were collars, bracelets, anklets, and coronets of gold, the spoils of various caciques, and which were considered as trophies won from barbaric princes of the rich coasts of Asia, or the islands of the Indian seas. It is a proof of the petty standard by which the sublime discovery of Columbus was already estimated, that he had to resort to this management to dazzle the gross perceptions of the multitude by the mere glare of gold.

He carried with him several Indians also, decorated after their savage fashion, and glittering with golden ornaments; among whom were the brother

* Muñoz, Hist. N. Mundo, lib. vi.

+ Cura de los Palacios, cap. 131. Oviedo, lib. ii. cap. 13.

and nephew of Caonabo, the former about thirty years of age, the latter only ten. They were brought merely to visit the king and queen, that they might be impressed with an idea of the grandeur and power of the Spanish sovereigns, after which they were to be restored in safety to their country. Whenever they passed through any principal place, Columbus put a massive collar and chain of gold upon the brother of Caonabo, as being cacique of the golden country of Cibao. The curate of Los Palacios, who entertained the discoverer and his Indian captives for several days in his house, says that he had this chain of gold in his hands, and that it weighed six hundred castellanos.* The worthy curate likewise makes mention of various Indian masks and images of wood or cotton, wrought with fantastic faces of animals, all of which he supposed were representations of the devil, who he concludes must be the object of adoration of these islanders.†

The reception of Columbus by the sovereigns was different from what he had anticipated; for he was treated with distinguished favor, nor was any mention made either of the complaints of Margarite and Boyle, or the judicial inquiries conducted by Aguado. However these may have had a transient effect on the minds of the sovereigns, they were too conscious of the great deserts of Columbus, and the extraordinary difficulties of his situation, not to tolerate what they may have considered errors on his part.

Encouraged by the favorable countenance he experienced, and by the interest with which the sovereigns listened to his account of his recent voyage along the coast of Cuba, and the discovery of the mines of Hayna, which he failed not to represent as the Ophir of the ancients, Columbus now proposed a further enterprise, by which he promised to make yet more extensive discoveries, and to annex Terra Firma to their dominions. For this purpose he asked eight ships: two to be dispatched to the island of Hispaniola with supplies, the remaining six to be put under his command for a voyage of discovery. The sovereigns readily promised to comply with his request, and were probably sincere in their intentions to do so, but in the performance of their promise Columbus was doomed to meet with intolerable delay; partly in consequence of the operation of public events, partly in consequence of the intrigues of inen of office, the two great influences which are continually diverting and defeating the designs of princes.

The resources of Spain were, at this moment, tasked to the utmost by the ambition of Ferdinand, who lavished all his revenues in warlike expenses and in subsidies. While maintaining a contest of deep and artful policy with France, with the ultimate aim of grasping the sceptre of Naples, he was laying the foundation of a wide and powerful connection by the marriages of the royal children, who were now maturing in years. At this time arose that family alliance, which afterward consolidated such an immense empire under his grandson and successor, Charles V.

While a large army was maintained in Italy, under Gonsalvo of Cordova, to assist the King of Naples in recovering his throne, of which he had been suddenly dispossessed by Charles VIII. of France, other armies were required on the frontiers of Spain, which were menaced with a French

* Equivalent to the value of three thousand one hundred and ninety-five dollars of the present time. Cura de los Palacios, cap. 131.

invasion. Squadrons also had to be employed for the safeguard of the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of the Peninsula, while a magnificent armada of upward of a hundred ships, having on board twenty thousand persons, many of them of the first nobility, was dispatched to convoy the Princess Juana to Flanders, to be married to Philip, Archduke of Austria, and to bring back his sister Margarita, the destined bride of Prince Juan.

These widely-extended operations, both of war and amity, put all the land and naval forces into requisition. They drained the royal treasury, and engrossed the thoughts of the sovereigns, obliging them also to journey from place to place in their dominions. With such cares of an immediate and homefelt nature pressing upon their minds, the distant enterprises of Columbus were easily neglected or postponed. They had hitherto been sources of expense instead of profit; and there were artful counsellors ever ready to whisper in the royal ear that they were likely to continue so. What, in the ambitious eyes of Ferdinand, was the acquisition of a number of wild, uncultivated, and distant islands, to that of the brilliant domain of Naples; or the intercourse with naked and barbaric princes, to that of an alliance with the most potent sovereigns of Christendom? Columbus had the mortification, therefore, to see armies levied and squadrons employed in idle contests about a little point of territory in Europe, and a vast armada of upward of a hundred sail destined to the ostentatious service of convoying a royal bride; while he vainly solicited a few caravels to prosecute his discovery of a world.

At length, in the autumn, six millions of maravedies were ordered to be advanced to Columbus for the equipment of his promised squadron.* Just as the sum was about to be delivered, a letter was received from Pedro Alonzo Niño, who had arrived at Cadiz with his three caravels, on his return from the island of Hispaniola. Instead of proceeding to court in person, or forwarding the dispatches of the Adelantado, he had gone to visit his family at Huelva, taking the dispatches with him, and merely writing, in a vaunting style, that he had a great amount of gold on board of his ships.t

This was triumphant intelligence to Columbus, who immediately concluded that the new mines were in operation, and the treasures of Ophir about to be realized. The letter of Niño, however, was fated to have a most injurious effect on his concerns.

The king at that moment was in immediate want of money, to repair the fortress of Salza, in Roussillon, which had been sacked by the French; the six millions of maravedies about to be advanced to Columbus were forthwith appropriated to patch up the shattered castle, and an order was given for the amount to be paid out of the gold brought by Niño. It was not until the end of December, when Niño arrived at court, and delivered the dispatches of the Adelantado, that his boast of gold was discovered to be a mere figure of speech, and that his caravels were, in fact, freighted with Indian prisoners, from the sale of whom the vaunted gold was to arise.

It is difficult to describe the vexatious effects of this absurd hyperbole. The hopes of Columbus, of great and immediate profit from the mines, were suddenly cast down; the zeal of his few ad

*Equivalent to 86,956 dollars of the present day. + Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. i. cap. 123, MS.

vocates was cooled; an air of empty exaggeration was given to his enterprises; and his enemies pointed with scorn and ridicule to the wretched cargoes of the caravels, as the boasted treasures of the New World. The report brought by Niño and his crew represented the colony as in a disastrous condition, and the dispatches of the Adelantado pointed out the importance of immediate supplies; but in proportion as the necessity of the case was urgent, the measure of relief was tardy. All the unfavorable representations hitherto made seemed corroborated, and the invidious cry of "great cost and little gain" was revived by those politicians of petty sagacity and microscopic eye, who, in all great undertakings, can discern the immediate expense, without having scope of vision to embrace the future profit.

Her

IT was not until the following spring of 1497 that the concerns of Columbus and of the New World began to receive serious attention from the sovereigns. The fleet had returned from Flanders with the Princess Margarita of Austria. nuptials with Prince Juan, the heir-apparent, had been celebrated at Burgos, the capital of Old Castile, with extraordinary splendor. All the grandees, the dignitaries, and chivalry of Spain, together with ambassadors from the principal potentates of Christendom, were assembled on the occasion. Burgos was for some time a scene of chivalrous pageant and courtly revel, and the whole kingdom celebrated with great rejoicings this powerful alliance, which seemed to insure to the Spanish sovereigns a continuance of their extraordinary prosperity.

In the midst of these festivities, Isabella, whose maternal heart had recently been engrossed by the marriages of her children, now that she was relieved from these concerns of a tender and domestic nature, entered into the affairs of the New World with a spirit that showed she was determined to place them upon a substantial foundation, as well as clearly to define the powers and reward the services of Columbus. To her protecting zeal all the provisions in favor of Columbus must be attributed; for the king began to look coldly on him, and the royal counsellors, who had most influence in the affairs of the Indies, were his enemies.

Various royal ordinances dated about this time manifest the generous and considerate disposition of the queen. The rights, privileges, and dignities granted to Columbus at Santa Fé, were again confirmed; a tract of land in Hispaniola, fifty leagues in length and twenty-five in breadth, was offered to him with the title of duke or marquess. This, however, Columbus had the forbearance to decline; he observed that it would only increase the envy which was already so virulent against him, and would cause new misrepresentations ; as he should be accused of paying more attention to the settlement and improvement of his own possessions than of any other part of the island.*

As the expenses of the expeditions had hitherto far exceeded the returns, Columbus had incurred

*Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. i. cap. 123.

debt rather than reaped profit from the share he had been permitted to take in them; he was relieved, therefore, from his obligation to bear an eighth part of the cost of the past enterprises, excepting the sum which he had advanced toward the first voyage; at the same time, however, he was not to claim any share of what had hitherto been brought from the island. For three ensuing years he was to be allowed an eighth of the gross proceeds of every voyage, and an additional tenth after the costs had been deducted. After the expiration of the three years, the original terms of agreement were to be resumed.

To gratify his honorable ambition also, and to perpetuate in his family the distinction gained by his illustrious deeds, he was allowed the right of establishing a mayorazgo, or perpetual entail of his estates, so that they might always descend with his titles of nobility. This he shortly after exercised in a solemn testament executed at Seville in the early part of 1498, by which he devised his estates to his own male descendants, and on their failure to the male descendants of his brothers, and in default of male heirs to the females of his lineage.

The heir was always to bear the arms of the admiral, to seal with them, to sign with his signature, and in signing, never to use any other title than simply "The Admiral," whatever other titles might be given him by the king, and used by him on other occasions. Such was the noble pride with which he valued this title of his real great

ness.

In this testament he made ample provision for his brother, the Adelantado, his son Fernando, and his brother Don Diego, the last of whom, he intimates, had a desire to enter into ecclesiastical life. He ordered that a tenth part of the revenues arising from the mayorazgo should be devoted to pious and charitable purposes, and in relieving all poor persons of his lineage. He made provisions for the giving of marriage-portions to the poor females of his family. He ordered that a married person of his kindred, who had been born in his native city of Genoa, should be maintained there in competence and respectability, by way of keeping a domicil for the family there; and he commanded whoever should inherit the mayorazgo, always to do everything in his power for the honor, prosperity, and increase of the city of Genoa, provided it should not be contrary to the service of the church and the interests of the Spanish crown. Among various other provisions in this will, he solemnly provides for his favorite scheme, the recovery of the holy sepulchre. He orders his son Diego, or whoever else may inherit his estate, to invest from time to time as much money as he can spare, in stock in the bank of St. George at Genoa, to form a permanent fund, with which he is to stand ready at any time to follow and serve the king in the conquest of Jerusalem. Or should the king not undertake such enterprise, then, when the funds have accumulated to sufficient amount, to set on foot a crusade at his own charge and risk, in hopes that, seeing his determination, the Sovereigns may be induced either to adopt the undertaking or to authorize him to pursue it in their name.

Besides this special undertaking for the Catholic faith, he charges his heir in case there should arise any schism in the church, or any violence menacing its prosperity, to throw himself at the feet of the pope, and devote his person and property to defend the church from all insult and spoliation. Next to the service of God, he enjoins

loyalty to the throne; commanding him at all times to serve the sovereigns and their heirs, faithfully and zealously, even to the loss of life and estate. To insure the constant remembrance of this testament, he orders his heir that, before he confesses, he shall give it to his father confessor to read, who is to examine him upon his faithful ful filment of its conditions.*

As Columbus had felt aggrieved by the general license granted in April, 1495, to make discoveries in the New World, considering it as interfering with his prerogatives, a royal edict was issued on the 2d of June, 1497, retracting whatever might be prejudicial to his interests, or to the previous grants made him by the crown. 'It never was our intention," said the sovereigns in their edict, "in any way to affect the rights of the said Don Christopher Columbus, nor to allow the conventions, privileges, and favors which we have granted him to be encroached upon or violated; but on the contrary, in consequence of the services which he has rendered us, we intend to confer still further favors on him.' Such, there is every reason to believe, was the sincere intention of the magnanimous Isabella; but the stream of her royal bounty was poisoned or diverted by the base channels through which it flowed,

The favor shown to Columbus was extended likewise to his family. The titles and prerogatives of Adelantado, with which he had invested his brother Don Bartholomew, had at first awakened the displeasure of the king, who jealously reserved all high dignities of the kind to be granted exclusively by the crown. By a royal letter the office was now conferred upon Don Bartholomew, as if through spontaneous favor of the sovereigns, no allusion being made to his having previously enjoyed it.

While all these measures were taken for the immediate gratification of Columbus, others were adopted for the interests of, the colony. Permission was granted him to take out three hundred and thirty persons in royal pay, of whom forty were to be escuderos, or servants, one hundred foot-soldiers, thirty sailors, thirty ship-boys, twenty miners, fifty husbandmen, ten gardeners, twenty mechanics of various kinds, and thirty females. He was subsequently permitted to increase the number, if he thought proper, to five hundred ; but the additional individuals were to be paid out of the produce and merchandise of the colony. He was likewise authorized to grant lands to all such as were disposed to cultivate vineyards, orchards, sugar plantations, or to form any other rural establishments, on condition that they should reside as householders on the island for four years after such grant, and that all the brazil-wood and precious metals found on their lands should be reserved to the crown.

Nor were the interests of the unhappy natives forgotten by the compassionate heart of Isabella. Notwithstanding the sophisms by which their subjection and servitude were made matters of civil and divine right, and sanctioned by the political prelates of the day, Isabella always consented with the greatest reluctance to the slavery even of those who were taken in open warfare; while her utmost solicitude was exerted to protect the unoffending part of this helpless and devoted race. She ordered that the greatest care should be taken of their religious instruction, and the greatest leniency shown in collecting the tributes imposed

* This testament is inserted at large in the Appen. dix.

upon them, with all possible indulgence to defalcators. In fact, the injunctions given with respect to the treatment both of Indians and Spaniards, are the only indications in the royal edicts of any impression having been made by the complaints against Columbus of severity in his government. It was generally recommended by the sovereigns that, whenever the public safety did not require stern measures, there should be manifested a disposition to lenity and easy rule.

When every intention was thus shown on the part of the crown to dispatch the expedition to the colony, unexpected difficulties arose on the part of the public. The charm was dispelled which in the preceding voyage had made every adventurer crowd into the service of Columbus. An odium had been industriously thrown upon his enterprises; and his new-found world, instead of a region of wealth and delight, was considered a land of poverty and disaster. There was a difficulty in procuring either ships or men for the voyage. To remedy the first of these deficiencies, one of those arbitrary orders was issued, so opposite to our present ideas of commercial policy, empowering the officers of the crown to press into the service whatever ships they might judge suitable for the purposed expedition, together with their masters and pilots; and to fix such price for their remuneration as the officers should deem just and reasonable. To supply the want of voluntary recruits, a measure was adopted at the suggestion of Columbus,* which shows the desperate alternatives to which he was reduced by the great reaction of public sentiment. This was to commute the sentences of criminals condemned to banishment, to the galleys, or to the mines, into transportation to the new settlements, where they were to labor in the public service without pay. Those whose sentence was banishment for life, to be transported for ten years; those banished for a specific term, to be transported for half that time. A general pardon was published for all malefactors at large, who within a certain time should surrender themselves to the admiral and embark for the colonies; those who had committed offences meriting death, to serve for two years, those whose misdeeds were of a lighter nature, to serve for one year. Those only were excepted from this indulgence who had committed heresy, treason, coining, murder, and certain other specific crimes. This pernicious measure, calculated to poison the population of an infant community at its very source, was a fruitful cause of trouble to Columbus, and of misery and detriment to the colony. It has been frequently adopted by various nations, whose superior experience should have taught them better, and has proved the bane of many a rising settlement. It is assuredly as unnatural for a metropolis to cast forth its crimes and vices upon its colonies, as it would be for a parent wilfully to engraft disease upon his children. In both instances the obligation of nature is vitiated; nor should it be matter of surprise, if the seeds of evil thus sown should bring forth bitter retribution.

Notwithstanding all these violent expedients, there was still a ruinous delay in fitting out the expedition. This is partly accounted for by changes which took place in the persons appointed to superintend the affairs of the Indies. These con

cerns had for a time been consigned to Antonio de Torres, in whose name, conjointly with that of Columbus, many of the official documents had

*Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. i. cap. 112, MS. + Muñoz, lib. vi. § 19.

been made out. In consequence of high and unreasonable demands on the part of Torres, he was removed from office, and Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca, Bishop of Badajos, reinstated. The papers had, therefore, to be made out anew, and fresh contracts formed. While these concerns were tardily attended to, the queen was suddenly overwhelmed with affliction by the death of her only son, Prince Juan, whose nuptials had been celebrated with such splendor in the spring. It was the first of a series of domestic calamities which assailed her affectionate heart, and overwhelmed her with affliction for the remainder of her days. In the midst of her distress, however, she still thought of Columbus. In consequence of his urgent representations of the misery to which the colony must be reduced, two ships were dispatched in the beginning of 1498, under the command of Pedro Fernandez Coronel, freighted with supplies. The necessary funds were advanced by the queen herself, out of the moneys intended to form the endowment of her daughter Isabella, then betrothed to Emanuel, King of Portugal. An instance of her kind feeling toward Columbus was also evinced in the time of her affliction; his two sons, Diego and Fernando, had been pages to the deceased prince; the queen now took them, in the same capacity, into her own service.

With all this zealous disposition on the part of the queen, Columbus still met with the most injurious and discouraging delays in preparing the six remaining vessels for his voyage. His coldblooded enemy Fonseca, having the superintendence of Indian affairs, was enabled to impede and retard all his plans. The various petty officers and agents employed in the concerns of the armament were many of them minions of the bishop, and knew that they were gratifying him in annoying Columbus. They looked upon the latter as a man declining in popularity, who might be offended with impunity; they scrupled not, therefore, to throw all kinds of difficulties in his path, and to treat him occasionally with that arrogance which petty and ignoble men in place are prone to exercise.

It seems almost incredible at the present day that such important and glorious enterprises should have been subject to such despicable molestations. Columbus bore them all with silent indignation. He was a stranger in the land he was benefiting; he felt that the popular tide was setting against him, and that it was necessary to tolerate many present grievances for the sake of effecting his great purposes. So wearied and disheartened, however, did he become by the impediments artfully thrown in his way, and so disgusted by the prejudices of the fickle public, that he at one time thought of abandoning his discoveries altogether. He was chiefly induced to persevere by his grateful attachment to the queen, and his desire to achieve something that might cheer and animate her under her afflictions.*

At length, after all kinds of irritating delays, the six vessels were fitted for sea, though it was impossible to conquer the popular repugnance to the service, sufficiently to enlist the allotted number of men. In addition to the persons in employ already enumerated, a physician, surgeon, and apothecary were sent out for the reiief of the colony, and several priests to replace Friar Boyle and certain of his discontented brethren; while a number of musicians were embarked by the ad. miral to cheer and enliven the colonists.

* Letter of Columbus to the nurse of Prince Juan.

The insolence which Columbus had suffered from the minions of Fonseca throughout this long protracted time of preparation harassed him to the last moment of his sojourn in Spain, and followed him to the very water's edge. Among the worthless hirelings who had annoyed him, the most noisy and presuming was one Ximeno Breviesca, treasurer or accountant of Fonseca. He was not an old Christian, observes the venerable Las Casas; by which it is to be understood that he was either a Jew or a Moor converted to the Catholic faith. He had an impudent front and an unbridled tongue, and, echoing the sentiments of his patron the bishop, had been loud in his abuse of the admiral and his enterprises. The very day when the squadron was on the point of weighing anchor, Columbus was assailed by the insolence of this Ximeno, either on the shore when about to embark, or on board of his ship where he had just entered. In the hurry of the moment he forgot his usual self-command; his indignation, hitherto repressed, suddenly burst forth; he struck the despicable minion to the ground, and kicked him repeatedly, venting in this unguarded paroxysm the accumulated griefs and vexations which had long rankled in his mind.*

Nothing could demonstrate more strongly what Columbus had previously suffered from the machinations of unworthy men, than this transport

of passion, so unusual in his well-governed temper. He deeply regretted it, and in a letter written some time afterward to the sovereigns, he endeavored to obviate the injury it might do him in their opinion, through the exaggeration and false coloring of his enemies. His apprehensions were not ill-founded, for Las Casas attributes the hu miliating measures shortly after adopted by the sovereigns toward Columbus, to the unfavorable impression produced by this affair. It had happened near at home, as it were, under the very eye of the sovereigns; it spoke, therefore, more quickly to their feelings than more important allegations from a distance. The personal castigation of a public officer was represented as a йagrant instance of the vindictive temper of Columbus, and a corroboration of the charges of cruelty and oppression sent from the colony. As Ximeno was a creature of the invidious Fonseca, the affair was represented to the sovereigns in the most odious point of view. Thus the generous intentions of princes, and the exalted services of their subjects, are apt to be defeated by the intervention of cold and crafty men in place. By his implacable hostility to Columbus, and the secret obstructions which he threw in the way of the most illustrious of human enterprises, Fonseca has insured perpetuity to his name, coupled with the contempt of every generous mind.

CHAPTER I.

DEPARTURE OF COLUMBUS FROM SPAIN ON HIS THIRD VOYAGE-DISCOVERY OF TRINIDAD.

[1498.]

ON the 30th of May, 1498, Columbus set sail from the port of San Lucar de Barrameda, with his squadron of six vessels, on his third voyage of discovery. The route he proposed to take was different from that pursued in his former voyages. He intended to depart from the Cape de Verde Islands, sailing to the south-west, until he should come under the equinoctial line, then to steer directly westward, with the favor of the trade-winds, until he should arrive at land, or find himself in the longitude of Hispaniola. Various considerations induced him to adopt this course. In his preceding voyage, when he coasted the southern side of Cuba, under the belief that it was the continent of Asia, he had observed that it swept off toward the south. From this circumstance, and from information gathered among the natives of the Caribbee Islands, he was induced to believe that a great tract of the main-land lay to the south of the countries he had already discovered. King John II. of Portugal appears to have entertained a similar idea; as Herrera records an opinion expressed by that monarch, that there was a continent in the southern ocean.† If this were the case, it was supposed by Columbus that, in proportion as he approached the equator, and extended his discoveries to climates more and more under the torrid influence of the sun, he should find

* Las Casas. Hist. Ind., lib. i. cap. 126, MS. Herrera, Hist. Ind., decad. i. lib. iii. cap. 9.

the productions of nature sublimated by its rays to more perfect and precious qualities. He was strengthened in this belief by a letter written to him at the command of the queen, by one Jayne Ferrer, an eminent and learned lapidary, who, in the course of his trading for precious stones and metals, had been in the Levant and in various parts of the East; had conversed with the merchants of the remote parts of Asia and Africa, and the natives of India, Arabia, and Ethiopia, and was considered deeply versed in geography generally, but especially in the natural histories of those countries whence the valuable merchandise in which he dealt was procured. In this letter Ferrer assured Columbus that, according to his experience, the rarest objects of commerce, such as gold, precious stones, drugs, and spices, were chiefly to be found in the regions about the equinoctial line, where the inhabitants were black, or darkly colored; and that until the admiral should arrive among people of such complexions he did not think he would find those articles in great abundance.*

Columbus expected to find such people more to the south. He recollected that the natives of Hispaniola had spoken of black men who had once come to their island from the south and southeast, the heads of whose javelins were of a sort of metal which they called Guanin. They had given the admiral specimens of this metal, which on being assayed in Spain, proved to be a mixture of eighteen parts gold, six silver, and eight copper, a proof of valuable mines in the country whence they came. Charlevoix conjectures that these black people may have come from the Ca

* Navarrete, Colec., tom. ii. doc. 68.