Vessels laden with complaints by and against Columbus were despatched for Spain in October; needy, ambitious courtiers held King Ferdinand's willing ear against him; from his persistent advocacy of Indian slave-traffic the friendship of his patron, Queen Isabella, grew cold; and in July, 1500, Francisco de Bobadilla was sent to Española with powers to investigate. Arrived at Santo Domingo August 23, the commissioner assumed at once authority, which at most was his right only after careful and conscientious inquiry, seized Columbus and his brother, and in October sent them in irons to Spain. _Colon_, _Hist. del Almirante_, in _Barcia_, tom. i. pp. 74-99; _Peter Martyr_, dec. i. cap. vi.-vii.; _Tercer Viage de Cristobal Colon_, in _Navarrete_, tom. i. pp. 242-76; _Napione_ and _De Conti_, _Biografia di Colombo_, pp. 350-75; _Cancellieri_, _Notizie di Colombo_, pp. 99-108, where is given Columbus' letter received in Spain in December, 1498, but apparently not printed at the time. During this third voyage, while about the gulf of Paria, new visions of the earth's form filled the mind of the great navigator, inflamed as it was by illness and anxiety. The world was indeed for the most part spherical, as had been supposed, but in this great central region on the equator he believed the surface to rise gradually to a great height, making the earth pear-shape with the terrestrial paradise, or birth-place of man, on its apex, the waters and islands visited by him being on the borders of this elevated portion. It is not necessary to enumerate the natural phenomena, scientific writings, and scripture texts with which he confirmed his theory. In his distracted enthusiasm he leaves us somewhat uncertain as to his idea of the situation of this new region with respect to India proper and those parts of Asia found by him in a former voyage farther north. If he had supposed it to be simply a southern extension of Marco Polo's Asia, he would not subsequently have sought for a strait or passage to India to the north rather than to the south of this point. Gama's successful circumnavigation of Africa forbade a revival in the mind of Columbus of the old theory of Ptolemy, that Africa extended east and north so as to enclose the Indian Ocean like an immense gulf. The admiral's idea, so far as he formed a definite one on the subject, must have been that of a large island, or detached portion of the Asiatic continent, occupying very nearly the actual relative position of the Australian archipelago, and only vaguely included, if at all, in ancient or mediæval knowledge of the far East. No other conclusion could rationally be drawn from his letters and subsequent actions; and we shall find such an idea of the geography of these parts often repeated in following years. We shall also see how unfortunate it was for the posthumous glory of the great discoverer in the matter of naming the western world, that he did not more clearly