ntly compelled to steer
for Hispaniola to seek for needed rest. On making land, after a sail of
five days, he found that he was fifty leagues to the westward of his
destination, having been driven across by the strong steady current
which sets in from the east, and assists to give an impetus to the Gulf
Stream.

Sending on shore for an Indian messenger to take a letter to his brother
the Adelantado, a canoe came off with several Indians, one of whom
carried a Spanish crossbow. As this was not an article of traffic, the
Admiral feared that fresh troubles had arisen, and that the weapon had
fallen into the Indian's hands by the death of a Spaniard.

Sailing, he arrived near the mouth of the river on the 30th of August,
when a caravel, appeared, on board of which came the Adelantado. The
brothers met with mutual joy, but the latter grieved to see the great
navigator so broken down in health, a mere wreck of himself, though with
his spirit still rising superior to all bodily affliction.

Though considerable progress had been made in the building of Isabella,
now called San Domingo, at the mouth of the Ozema, the Adelantado had
sad accounts to give of the state of the island. Rebellion had been
rife among the colonists in all directions. The Indians had been
barbarously treated, and all authority had been set at defiance.
Attempts had been made to murder the Adelantado, and the leaders had
sent home the most serious accusations against him and Columbus and
their brother Diego. They had succeeded too well in raising suspicions
in the mind of Ferdinand as to the loyalty of Columbus, and an officer
of the royal household, Don Francisco de Bobadilla, was sent out
nominally to investigate the causes of the rebellion, but with power to
arrest the persons and sequestrate the effects of those he might
consider guilty; while he was to take upon himself the government of the
island, and to demand the surrender of all fortresses, ships, and other
royal property.

Columbus had gone into the interior to arrange matters, while the
Adelantado and his brother had almost succeeded in overcoming the
rebellion, when Bobadilla, accompanied by a guard of twenty-five men and
six friars, who had charge of a number of Indians sent back to their
country, appeared off Saint Domingo on the 23rd of August, 1500.
Landing, without stopping to investigate the conduct of Columbus and his
brothers, he instantly commenced the most arbitrary proceed