nt numbers to overwhelm and exterminate the strangers, in spite
of their solid-hoofed monsters and death-dealing thunderbolts. This
scheme was revealed to Columbus, soon after his return from the coast of
Cuba, by the chieftain Guacanagari, who was an enemy to Caonabo and
courted the friendship of the Spaniards. Alonso de Ojeda, by a daring
stratagem, captured Caonabo and brought him to Columbus, who treated him
kindly but kept him a prisoner until it should be convenient to send him
to Spain. But this chieftain's scheme was nevertheless put in operation
through the influence of his principal wife Anacaona. An Indian war
broke out; roaming bands of Spaniards were ambushed and massacred; and
there was fighting in the field, where the natives--assailed by firearms
and cross-bows, horses and bloodhounds--were wofully defeated.

[Footnote 579: See below, vol. ii. pp. 433, 434.]

[Footnote 580: The first of a series of such schemes in
American history, including those of Sassacus, Philip, Pontiac,
and to some extent Tecumseh.]

[Sidenote: Mission of Aguado.]

[Sidenote: Discovery of gold mines.]

[Sidenote: Speculations about Ophir.]

Thus in the difficult task of controlling mutinous white men and
defending the colony against infuriated red men Columbus spent the first
twelvemonth after his return from Cuba. In October, 1495, there arrived
in the harbour of Isabella four caravels laden with welcome supplies. In
one of these ships came Juan Aguado, sent by the sovereigns to gather
information respecting the troubles of the colony. This appointment
was doubtless made in a friendly spirit, for Columbus had formerly
recommended Aguado to favour. But the arrival of such a person created a
hope, which quickly grew into a belief, that the sovereigns were
preparing to deprive Columbus of the government of the island; and, as
Irving neatly says, "it was a time of jubilee for offenders; every
culprit started up into an accuser." All the ills of the colony, many of
them inevitable in such an enterprise, many of them due to the
shiftlessness and folly, the cruelty and lust of idle swash-bucklers,
were now laid at the door of Columbus. Aguado was presently won over by
the malcontents, so that by the time he was ready to return to Spain,
early in 1496, Columbus felt it desirable to go along with him and make
his own explanations to the sovereigns. Fortunately for his purposes,
just before he star