Columbus hastened to Isabella, where he greeted Aguado with such overwhelming politeness that the fellow became wretchedly unhappy. He had hoped to be able to report that Columbus had insulted him and treated the royal commission with contempt, but he was disappointed. He was a little cheered up, however, by a tremendous hurricane which wrecked all the Spanish ships except one, and kept the air for a time full of Spanish colonists, natives, and fragments of ruined buildings. This he thought would read very well in his intended report on the general infamy of the climate, and, despairing of obtaining anything better, he resolved to return to Spain as soon as a new vessel could be built. The Admiral announced that he intended to return with him, a piece of news that greatly discontented Aguado, who foresaw that after he had made his report concerning Columbus the latter would be entirely capable of making a report concerning Aguado. [Æt. 60; 1496] About this time a young Spaniard arrived from the interior with a most welcome story. He had run away from Isabella on account of having nearly killed a fellow-colonist, and had met a beautiful female cacique living on the river Ozema, near the present site of San Domingo, who had fallen violently in love with him. From her he had learned of rich gold-mines, and he humbly trusted that Columbus would condescend to look at them and to overlook his little indiscretion in the matter of his fellow-colonist. The Admiral, secretly feeling that any man who killed one of his colonists was a benefactor of the human race, kindly forgave him and went with him to inspect the mines, which he found to be apparently so rich that he instantly overhauled his Old Testament and his Geography, and decided that he had found the original land of Ophir. A new scientific person, who had been sent out to supersede the worthless Fermin Cedo, was ordered to take his crucibles, transit instruments, and other apparatus, and make a satisfactory assay of the mines. He did so, and, being a clever man, reported to the Admiral that the gold was unusually genuine, and that the ore would probably average three hundred dollars to the ton. At least, that is what he would have reported had he been a modern expert investigating mining property in behalf of British capitalists, and we need not suppose that there were no able assayers prior to the discovery of silver in Colorado. Columbus read the report, expressed a high opinion of the scientific abilities of the assayer, and ordered a fort to be built in the neighborhood of the mines.