appearance at Isabella, discontent was rife and mutiny afoot before the year had ended. In April, 1494, Columbus set sail with three caravels to revisit the coast of Cuba, for a more extended exploration than he had attempted on the first discovery. "He supposed it to be a continent, and the extreme end of Asia, and if so, by following its shores in the proposed direction he must eventually arrive at Cathay and those other rich and commercial, though semi-barbarous countries, described by Mandeville and Marco Polo." Reports of gold led him southward from Cuba until he discovered the island which he called Santiago, but which has kept its native name, Jamaica, signifying the Island of Springs. Disappointed in the search for gold, he soon returned from Jamaica to Cuba and sailed along its southern coast to very near the western extremity, confirming himself and his followers in the belief that they skirted the shores of Asia and might follow them to the Red Sea, if their ships and stores were equal to so long a voyage. "Two or three days' further sail would have carried Columbus round the extremity of Cuba; would have dispelled his illusion, and might have given an entirely different course to his subsequent discoveries. In his present conviction he lived and died; believing to his last hour that Cuba was the extremity of the Asiatic continent." {51} Returning eastward, he visited Jamaica again and purposed some further exploration of the Caribbee Islands, when his toils and anxieties overcame him. "He fell into a deep lethargy, resembling death itself. His crew, alarmed at this profound torpor, feared that death was really at hand. They abandoned, therefore, all further prosecution of the voyage; and spreading their sails to the east wind so prevalent in those seas, bore Columbus back, in a state of complete insensibility, to the harbor of Isabella,"--Sept. 4. Recovering consciousness, the admiral was rejoiced to find his brother Bartholomew, from whom he had been separated for years, and who had been sent out to him from Spain, in command of three ships. Otherwise there was little to give pleasure to Columbus when he returned to Isabella. His followers were again disorganized, again at war with the natives, whom they plundered and licentiously abused, and a mischief-making priest had gone back to Spain, along with certain intriguing officers, to make complaints and set enmities astir at the court. Involved in war, Columbus prosecuted it relentlessly, reduced the island to submission and the natives to servitude and misery by heavy exactions. In March 1496 he returned to Spain, to defend himself against the machinations of his enemies, transferring the government of Hispaniola to his brother Bartholomew. _W. Irving, Life and Voyages of Columbus, books 6-8 (volumes 1-2)._