But in the midst of his work among the West Indian Islands, the Admiral was recalled home to answer terrible charges――of untruthfulness in his descriptions of the countries discovered, and of cruelty to the natives and colonists under his charge――brought against him by his enemies. Although he succeeded in clearing himself for a time, to the satisfaction of Ferdinand and Isabella, from the odious suspicions which had been cast upon him, the rest of his life was one long struggle with persecution and adversity. From his third voyage, in which he discovered Trinidad, and landed at Paria, on the coast of South America, he was sent home in chains. We only linger a moment by the manacled hero to quote once more from Tennyson’s “Columbus.” “... You know The flies at home that ever swarm about, And cloud the highest heads, and murmur down Truth in the distance――these outbuzzed me so, That even our prudent king, our righteous queen―― I prayed them, being so calumniated, They would commission one of weight and worth To judge between my slandered self and me―― Fonseca, my main enemy at their court, They send me out _his_ tool, Bovadilla, one As ignorant and impolitic as a beast―― Blockish irreverence, brainless greed――who sack’d My dwelling, seized upon my papers, loos’d My captives, fee’d the rebels of the crown, Sold the crown-farms for all but nothing, gave All but free leave for all to work the mines, Drove me and my good brothers home in chains; And gathering ruthless gold――a single piece Weighed nigh four thousand castillanos――so They tell me――weigh’d him down into the abysm. The hurricane of the latitude on him fell, The seas of our discovering over-roll Him and his gold; the frailer caravel, With what was mine, came happily to the shore. _There_ was a glimmering of God’s hand.” Illustration: COLUMBUS IN CHAINS. Soon after the conclusion of his fourth and last voyage, Columbus died at Valladolid in poverty and disgrace, leaving others――many of whom he had himself trained to be able navigators――to reap the fruits of his labors. One of the first explorers to follow in the track of Columbus was Amerigo Vespucci, whose name, for some reason not very clearly made out, was bestowed on the land discovered by his great predecessor. The work of Amerigo was, however, almost entirely confined to the southern half of the vast continent called after him, although he is supposed to have sailed without landing as far north as Chesapeake Bay; and we therefore pass on to the Cabots, one of whom appears to have been the first European of modern times to set foot in North America. Illustration: AMERIGO VESPUCCI. Illustration: CABOT BEFORE THE COSMOGRAPHERS.