he first church in the New World. During the same voyage
he also built the first road.

As has been said, the first voyages to America were little in comparison
with the difficulty in getting a chance to make a voyage at all; and the
hardships of the sea were nothing to those that came after the safe
landing. It was now that Columbus entered upon the troubles which
darkened the remainder of a life of glory. Great as was his genius as an
explorer, he was an unsuccessful colonizer; and though he founded the
first four towns in all the New World, they brought him only ill. His
colonists at Isabella soon grew mutinous; and San Tonias, which he
founded in Hayti, brought him no better fortune. The hardships of
continued exploration among the West Indies presently overcame his
health, and for nearly half a year he lay sick in Isabella. Had it not
been for his bold and skilful brother Bartholomew, of whom we hear so
little, we might not have heard so much of Columbus.

By 1495, the just displeasure of the Crown with the unfitness of the
first viceroy of the New World caused Juan Aguado to be sent out with an
open commission to inspect matters. This was more than Columbus could
bear; and leaving Bartholomew as adelantado (a rank for which we now
have no equivalent; it means the officer in chief command of an
expedition of discoverers), Columbus hastened to Spain and set himself
right with his sovereigns. Returning to the New World as soon as
possible, he discovered at last the mainland (that of South America),
Aug. 1, 1498, but at first thought it an island, and named it Zeta.
Presently, however, he came to the mouth of the Orinoco, whose mighty
current proved to him that it poured from a continent.

Stricken down by sickness, he returned to Isabella, only to find that
his colonists had revolted against Bartholomew. Columbus satisfied the
mutineers by sending them back to Spain with a number of slaves,--a
disgraceful act, for which the times are his only apology. Good Queen
Isabella was so indignant at this barbarity that she ordered the poor
Indians to be liberated, and sent out Francisco de Bobadilla, who in
1500 arrested Columbus and his two brothers, in Espanola, and sent them
in irons to Spain. Columbus speedily regained the sympathy of the Crown,
and Bobadilla was superseded; but that was the end of Columbus as
viceroy of the New World. In 1502 he made his fourth voyage, discovered
Martinique and other islands, and found