This time he was not received with any enthusiasm. He had so often returned from voyages to China without bringing with him so much as a broken tea-cup as a sample of the Celestial Kingdom, that the public had lost all interest in him. People who read in their newspapers among the list of hotel arrivals the name of Columbus, merely remarked, “So he’s back again it seems,” and then proceeded to read the criticism upon the preceding night’s bullfight. The popular feeling was, that Columbus had entirely overdone the matter of returning home from profitless explorations. There were other explorers who came back to Spain with stories much more imaginative than those which Columbus could tell, and the Spanish public had turned its attention from Prester John and the Emperor of China to the Amazonian warriors of South America and the Fountain of Youth which explorers of real enterprise were ready to discover. Had there been any knowledge of the science of politics in Spain, Columbus would have been a person of considerable importance in his old age. The Radicals would have rallied around him, and would have denounced the atrocious manner in which a treacherous and reactionary monarchy had treated him. Columbian clubs would have been established everywhere, and he would have been made to serve as the stalking-horse of an unprincipled and reckless faction. [Æt. 67–70; 1503–1506] When we compare the way in which the Italian republicans have used the name and fame of Garibaldi as the most effective weapon in striking at the monarchy which has made United Italy possible, we cannot but despise the ignorance of politics shown by the Spaniards in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Columbus, though utterly worn out, was still able to write letters. He wrote to the King, to the Queen, to everybody who had any influence, asking that his honors and privileges should be restored, and hinting that he was ready to be sent back to San Domingo as Governor. No one paid any attention to him. Other men were fitting out exploring expeditions, and Columbus, with his splendid dreams and his peculiar mixture of religion and geography, was regarded as a foolish old man who had outlived his original usefulness. He was too sick to visit the court and personally explain why he had not discovered the Panama Canal, and the King, having failed to keep his own promises, was naturally not at all anxious to see him. Perhaps Isabella would have still remained faithful to her old protégé, but she was on her deathbed, and died without seeing him. In May, 1505, Columbus managed to go to Segovia, where Ferdinand held his court. He saw the King, but got very little pleasure thereby. Ferdinand was now a widower and his own master; and his manner plainly showed Columbus that, whatever the King might promise, he never intended to keep his word and do justice to the man who had given him a new world.