carried out roots and suckers of the sugar-cane. In fifteen
days the shoots were a cubit high. A farmer who had planted wheat in the
beginning of February had ripe grain in the beginning of April; so that
they were sure of, at least, two crops in a year.

But the fertility of the soil was the only favorable token which the
island first exhibited. The climate was enervating and sickly. The
labor on the new city was hard and discouraging. Columbus found that his
colonists were badly fitted for their duty, or not fitted for it at
all. Court gentlemen did not want to work. Priests expected to be put
on better diet than any other people. Columbus--though he lost his
own popularity--insisted on putting all on equal fare, in sharing the
supplies he had brought from Spain. It did not require a long time to
prove that the selection of the site of the colony was unfortunate.
Columbus himself gave way to the general disease. While he was ill, a
mutiny broke out which he had to suppress by strong measures.

Bornal Diaz, who ranked as comptroller of the expedition, and Fermin
Cedo, an assayer, made a plot for seizing the remaining ships and
sailing for Europe. News of the mutiny was brought to Columbus. He
found a document in the writing of Diaz, drawn as a memorial, accusing
Columbus himself of grave crimes. He confined Diaz on board a ship to
be sent to Spain with the memorial. He punished the mutineers of lower
rank. He took the guns and naval munitions from four of the vessels, and
entrusted them all to a person in whom he had absolute confidence.

On the report of the exploring parties, four names were given to as many
divisions of the island. Junna was the most western, Attibunia the most
eastern, Jachen the northern and Naiba the southern. Columbus himself,
seeing the fortifications of the city well begun, undertook, in March,
an exploration, of the island, with a force of five hundred men.

It was in the course of this exploration that one of the natives brought
in a gold-bearing stone which weighed an ounce. He was satisfied with a
little bell in exchange. He was surprised at the wonder expressed by the
Spaniards, and showing a stone as large as a pomegranate, he said that
he had nuggets of gold as large as this at his home. Other Indians
brought in gold-bearing stones which weighed more than an ounce. At
their homes, also, but not in sight, alas, was a block of gold as large
as an infant's head.

Columbus himself thou