ed slowly, and it was not till May 30,
1498, that he and his six ships set sail.

From San Lucar he steered for Gomera, in the Canaries, and thence
dispatched three of his ships to San Domingo. He next proceeded to the
Cape Verde Islands, which he quitted on July 4th. On the 31st of the
same month, being greatly in need of water, and fearing that no land lay
westward as they had hoped, Columbus had turned his ship's head north,
when Alonzo Perez, a mariner of Huelva, saw land about fifteen leagues
to the southwest. It was crowned with three hilltops, and so, when the
sailors had sung the _Salve Regina_, the Admiral named it Trinidad,
which name it yet bears. On Wednesday, August 1st, he beheld for the
first time, in the mainland of South America, the continent he had
sought so long. It seemed to him but an insignificant island, and he
called it Zeta. Sailing westward, next day he saw the Gulf of Paria,
which was named by him the Golfo de la Belena, and was borne into it--an
immense risk--on the ridge of breakers formed by the meeting with the
sea of the great rivers that empty themselves, all swollen with rain,
into the ocean. For many days he coasted the continent, esteeming as
islands the several projections he saw and naming them accordingly; nor
was it until he had looked on and considered the immense volume of fresh
water poured out through the embouchure of the river now called the
Orinoco, that he concluded that the so-called archipelago must be in
very deed a great continent.

Unfortunately at this time he was suffering intolerably from gout and
ophthalmia; his ships were crazy; and he was anxious to inspect the
infant colony whence he had been absent so long. And so, after touching
at and naming the Island of Margarita, he bore away to the northeast,
and on August 30th the fleet dropped anchor off Isabella.

He found that affairs had not prospered well in his absence. By the
vigor and activity of the adelantado, the whole island had been reduced
under Spanish sway, but at the expense of the colonists. Under the
leadership of a certain Roldan, a bold and unprincipled adventurer, they
had risen in revolt, and Columbus had to compromise matters in order to
restore peace. Roldan retained his office; such of his followers as
chose to remain in the island were gratified with _repartimientos_ of
land and labor; and some fifteen, choosing to return to Spain, were
enriched with a number of slaves, and sent home in two