FOURTH AND LAST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS

From a Letter Written to the King and Queen of Spain AFTER all his years of faithful service to Spain, Columbus has been stripped of his honors and authority even of his cloak and he is being carried back a prisoner in chains. It is the final chapter of his great career, and no one has ever written it as he himself tells it in this letter to Ferdinand and Isabella.

MOST serene, and very high and mighty Princes, the King and Queen our Sovereigns : My passage from Cadiz to the Canary occupied four days, and thence to the Indies, from which I wrote, sixteen days. My intention was to expedite my voyage as much as possible while I had good vessels, good crews and stores, and because Jamaica was the place to which I was bound. I wrote this in Dominica; and until now my time has been occupied in gaining information. . . . Such is my fate, that the twenty years of service through which I have passed with so much toil and danger, have profited me nothing, and at this very day I do not possess a roof in Spain that I can call my own ; if I wish to eat or sleep, I have nowhere to go but to the inn or tavern, and most times lack wherewith to pay the bill. Another anxiety wrung my very heart-strings, which was the thought of my son Diego, whom I had left an orphan in Spain, and stripped of the honor and property which were due to him on my account, although I had looked upon it as a certainty, that Your Majesties, as just and grateful Princes, would restore it to him in all respects with increase. I reached the land of Cariay, where I stopped to repair my vessels and take in provisions, as well as to afford relaxation to the men, who had become very weak. I myself (who, as I said before, had been several times at the point of death) gained information respecting the gold mines of which I was in search, in the province of Ciamba; and two Indians conducted me to Carambaru, where the people . . . wear golden mirrors round their necks, which they will neither sell, give, nor part with for any consideration. They named to me many places on the seacoast where there were both gold and mines. The last that they mentioned was Veragua [Venezuela? ] which was five-and-twenty leagues distant from the place where we then were. I started with the intention of visiting all of them, but when I had reached the middle of my journey I learned that there were other mines at so short a distance that they might be reached in two days. I determined on sending to see them. It was on the eve of St. Simon and St. Jude, which was the day fixed for our departure ; but that night there arose so violent a storm, that we were forced to go wherever it drove us, and the Indian who was to conduct us to the mines was with us all the time. As I had found everything true that had been told me in the different places which I had visited, I felt satisfied it would be the same with respect to Ciguare, which according to their account, is nine days' journey across the country westward: they tell me there is a great quantity of gold there, and that the inhabitants wear coral ornaments on their heads, and very large coral bracelets and anklets, with which article also they adorn and inlay their seats, boxes and tables. They also said that the women there wore necklaces hanging their down to their shoulders. All the people agree in the report I now repeat, and their account is so favorable that I should be content with the tithe of the advantages that their description holds out. They are all likewise acquainted with the pepper-plant; according to the account of these people, the inhabitants of Ciguare are accustomed to hold fairs and markets for carrying on their commerce, and they showed me also the mode and form in which they transact their various exchanges; others assert that their ships carry guns, and that the men go clothed and use bows and arrows, swords and cuirasses, and that on shore they have horses which they use in battle, and that they wear rich clothes and have most excellent houses. They also say that the sea surrounds Ciguare, and that at ten days' journey from thence is the river Ganges ; these lands appear to hold the same relation to Veragua, as Tortola to Fontarabia, or Pisa to Venice. When I left Carambaru and reached the places in its neighborhood, which I have above mentioned as being spoken of by the Indians, I found the customs of the people correspond with the accounts that had been given of them, except as regarded the golden mirrors: any man who had one of them would willingly part with it for three hawks'-bells, although they were equivalent in weight to ten or fifteen ducats. These people resemble the natives of Espanola in all their habits. They have various modes of collecting the gold, none of which will bear comparison with the plans adopted by the Christians.

On the sixth of February, while it was still raining, I sent seventy men on shore to go into the interior, and, at five leagues' distance they found several mines. The Indians who went with them, conducted them to a very lofty mountain, and thence showing them the country all round, as far as the eye could reach, told them there was gold in every part, and that, towards the west, the mines extended twenty days' journey; they also recounted the names of the towns and villages where there was more or less of it. I afterwards learned that the cacique Quibian, who had lent these Indians, had ordered them to show the distant mines, and which belonged to an enemy of his; but that in his own territory, one man might, if he would, collect in ten days a great abundance of gold. I bring with me some Indians, his servants, who are witnesses of this fact. The boats went up to the spot where the dwellings of these people are situated; and, after four hours, my brother returned with the guides, all of them bringing back gold which they had collected at that place. The gold must be abundant, and of good quality, for none of these men had ever seen mines before; very many of them had never seen pure gold, and most of them were seamen and lads.