the
east, and so spent a month in beating and tacking before getting out of
the Caribbean Sea. Scarcity of food was imminent, and it became
necessary to stop at Guadaloupe and make a quantity of cassava
bread.[585] It was well that this was done, for as the ships worked
slowly across the Atlantic, struggling against perpetual head-winds, the
provisions were at length exhausted, and by the first week in June the
famine was such that Columbus had some difficulty in preventing the
crews from eating their Indian captives, of whom there were thirty or
more on board.[586]

[Footnote 584: Bartholomew's town was built on the left side of
the river, and was called New Isabella. In 1504 it was
destroyed by a hurricane, and rebuilt on the right bank in its
present situation. It was then named San Domingo after the
patron saint of Domenico, the father of Columbus.]

[Footnote 585: While the Spaniards were on this island they
encountered a party of tall and powerful women armed with bows
and arrows; so that Columbus supposed it must be the Asiatic
island of Amazons mentioned by Marco Polo. See Yule's _Marco
Polo_, vol. ii. pp. 338-340.]

[Footnote 586: Among them was Caonabo, who died on the voyage.]

[Sidenote: Edicts of 1495 and 1497.]

At length, on the 11th of June, the haggard and starving company arrived
at Cadiz, and Columbus, while awaiting orders from the sovereigns,
stayed at the house of his good friend Bernaldez, the curate of Los
Palacios.[587] After a month he attended court at Burgos, and was kindly
received. No allusion was made to the complaints against him, and the
sovereigns promised to furnish ships for a third voyage of discovery.
For the moment, however, other things interfered with this enterprise.
One was the marriage of the son and daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella
to the daughter and son of the Emperor Maximilian. The war with France
was at the same time fast draining the treasury. Indeed, for more than
twenty years, Castile had been at war nearly all the time, first with
Portugal, next with Granada, then with France; and the crown never found
it easy to provide money for maritime enterprises. Accordingly, at the
earnest solicitation of Vicente Yanez Pinzon and other enterprising
mariners, the sovereigns had issued a proclamation, April 10, 1495,
granting to all native Spaniards the privilege of making,