quelle tempo usada, que toda consistia em
olhar com desconfianca para tudo o que era estrangeiro, e en
promover por todos os modos a gloria nacional. O capitao
nomeado para a empreza, como nao tivesse nem o espirito, nem a
conviccao de Colombo, depois de huma curta viagem nos mares do
Oeste, fez-se na volta da terra: e arribou a Lisboa descontente
e desanimado." Campe, _Historia do descobrimento da America_,
Paris, 1836, tom. i. p. 13. The frightened sailors protested
that YOU MIGHT AS WELL EXPECT TO FIND LAND IN THE SKY AS IN
THAT WASTE OF WATERS! See Las Casas, _Hist. de las Indias_,
tom. i. p. 221. Las Casas calls the king's conduct by its right
name, _dobladura_, "trickery."]

[Footnote 488: It has generally been supposed, on the authority
of _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. xi., that his wife had lately
died; but an autograph letter of Columbus, in the possession of
his lineal descendant and representative the present Duke of
Veraguas, proves that this is a mistake. In this letter
Columbus says expressly that when he left Portugal he left wife
and children, and never saw them again. (Navarrete,
_Coleccion_, tom. ii. doc. cxxxvii. p. 255.) As Las Casas, who
knew Diego so well, also supposed his mother to have died
before his father left Portugal, it is most likely that she
died soon afterwards. Ferdinand Columbus says that Diego was
left in charge of some friars at the convent of La Rabida near
Palos (_loc. cit._); Las Casas is not quite so sure; he thinks
Diego was left with some friend of his father at Palos, or
perhaps (_por ventura_) at La Rabida. (_Historia_, tom. i. p.
227.) These mistakes were easy to make, for both La Rabida and
Huelva were close by Palos, and we know that Diego's aunt
Muliar was living at Huelva. (Las Casas, _op. cit._ tom. i. p.
241; Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 279, 356, 391; tom. ii. p. 229.) It
is pretty clear that Columbus never visited La Rabida before
the autumn of 1491 (see below, p. 412). My own notion is that
Columbus may have left his wife with an infant and perhaps one
older child, relieving her of the care of Diego by taking him
to his aunt, and intending as soon as practicable t