the enemies of Christianity
and of Europe, who could not be neglected. More than this, Spain was
beginning to receive very large and important revenues from the islands.

It is said that the annual revenues from Hispaniola already amounted to
twelve millions of our dollars. It was not unnatural that the king and
queen, willing to throw off the disgrace which they had incurred from
Bobadilla's cruelty, should not only send Ovando to replace him, but
should, though in an humble fashion, give to Columbus an opportunity to
show that his plans were not chimerical.

CHAPTER XII. -- FOURTH VOYAGE.

THE INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN FOR THE VOYAGE--HE IS TO GO TO THE MAINLAND OF
THE INDIES--A SHORT PASSAGE--OVANDO FORBIDS THE ENTRANCE OF COLUMBUS
INTO HARBOR--BOBADILLA'S SQUADRON AND ITS FATE--COLUMBUS SAILS
WESTWARD--DISCOVERS HONDURAS, AND COASTS ALONG ITS SHORES--THE
SEARCH FOR GOLD--COLONY ATTEMPTED AND ABANDONED--THE VESSELS
BECOME UNSEAWORTHY--REFUGE AT JAMAICA--MUTINY LED BY THE
BROTHERS PORRAS--MESSAGES TO SAN DOMINGO--THE ECLIPSE--ARRIVAL OF
RELIEF--COLUMBUS RETURNS TO SAN DOMINGO, AND TO SPAIN.

It seems a pity now that, after his third voyage, Columbus did not
remain in Spain and enjoy, as an old man could, the honors which he had
earned and the respect which now waited upon him. Had this been so, the
world would have been spared the mortification which attends the thought
that the old man to whom it owes so much suffered almost everything in
one last effort, failed in that effort, and died with the mortification
of failure. But it is to be remembered that Columbus was not a man to
cultivate the love of leisure. He had no love of leisure to cultivate.
His life had been an active one. He had attempted the solution of a
certain problem which he had not solved, and every day of leisure, even
every occasion of effort and every word of flattery, must have quickened
in him new wishes to take the prize which seemed so near, and to achieve
the possibility which had thus far eluded him.

From time to time, therefore, he had addressed new memorials to the
sovereigns proposing a new expedition; and at last, by an instruction
which is dated on the fourteenth of March, in the year 1502, a fourth
voyage was set on foot at the charge of the king and queen,--an
instruction not to stop at Hispaniola, but, for the saving of time, to
pass by that island. This is a graceful way of intimating to him that
he is not to mix himself up with th