mbarrassed and complicated with the long series of
failures, vexations, miseries, insults, that have rendered his career as
a planter of colonies and as a ruler of men most pitiful and remarkable.

The climate of Navidad proved unhealthy; the colonists were greedy of
gold, impatient of control, and as proud, ignorant, and mutinous as
Spaniards could be; and Columbus, whose inclinations drew him westward,
was doubtless glad to escape the worry and anxiety of his post, and to
avail himself of the instructions of his sovereigns as to further
discoveries. In January, 1494, he sent home, by Antonio de Torres, that
dispatch to their Catholic Highnesses by which he may be said to have
founded the West Indian slave trade. He founded the mining camp of San
Tomaso in the gold country; and on April 24, 1494, having nominated a
council of regency under his brother Diego, and appointed Pedro de
Margarite his captain-general, he put again to sea. After following the
southern shore of Cuba for some days, he steered southward, and
discovered the Island of Jamaica, which he named Santiago. He then
resumed his exploration of the Cuban coast, threading his way through a
labyrinth of islets supposed to be the Morant Keys, which he named the
Garden of the Queen, and after coasting westward for many days he became
convinced that he had discovered the mainland, and called Perez de Luna,
the notary, to draw up a document attesting his discovery (June 12,
1494), which was afterward taken round and signed, in presence of four
witnesses, by the masters, mariners, and seamen of his three caravels,
the Nina, the Cadera, and the San Juan. He then stood to the southeast
and sighted the Island of Evangelista; and after many days of
difficulties and anxieties he touched at and named the Island La Mona.
Thence he had intended to sail eastward and complete the survey of the
Carribbean Archipelago. But he was exhausted by the terrible wear and
tear of mind and body he had undergone (he says himself that on this
expedition he was three-and-thirty days almost without any sleep), and
on the day following his departure from La Mona he fell into a lethargy
that deprived him of sense and memory, and had well nigh proved fatal to
life. At last, on September 29th, the little fleet dropped anchor off
Isabella, and in his new city the great Admiral lay sick for five
months.

The colony was in a sad plight. Everyone was discontented, and many were
sick, for the cli