It has been said that Fate
was always a little niggardly with Columbus, and never was it truer than
at this moment when she at last deafened his ear to the tale of gold and
sent him south.
All November and December he continued coasting along South America. But
his greedy crew could never forget the sight of those Veragua natives
actually smelting gold. The men became sulky and clamored to go back;
and furthermore, the ships were too worm-eaten and too covered with
barnacles to proceed. On December 5, in order to take the gold-seekers
back to Darien, he reluctantly gave over his search for the passage to
the Indian Ocean. But the minute he turned north new gales began to
blow. These continued so furiously that in a whole month they progressed
barely a hundred miles. All this time they were nearly starved; about
the only provisions left were their rotten biscuits and these were, as
Fernando tells us, so disgusting to look upon that "many waited till
night to eat their sop."
At last the famished party got back to Veragua. Eighty men landed with
the idea of forming a settlement under Bartolome Colon. They had the
good sense to act in the friendliest manner to the native chief; but he
was not the simple-minded creature that Guacanagari was, over in Haiti.
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