Meanwhile in Spain reiteration of charges was beginning to shake the confidence of his sovereigns; and Juan Aguado, a friend of Columbus, was sent to investigate. He reached Isabella in October,—Diego, the Admiral’s brother, accompanying him. Aguado did not find affairs reassuring; and when he returned to Spain with his report in March (1496), Columbus thought it best to go too, and to make his excuses or explanations in person. They reached Cadiz in June, just as Niño was sailing with three caravels to the new colony. [Illustration: COLUMBUS AT ISLA MARGARITA. Fac-simile of engraving in Herrera.] Ferdinand and Isabella received him kindly, gave him new honors, and promised him other outfits. Enthusiasm, however, had died out, and delays took place. The reports of the returning ships did not correspond with the pictures of Marco Polo, and the new-found world was thought to be a very poor India after all. Most people were of this mind; though Columbus was not disheartened, and the public treasury was readily opened for a third voyage. [Illustration: AMERICANS. This is the earliest representation which we have of the natives of the New World, showing such as were found by the Portuguese on the north coast of South America. It has been supposed that it was issued in Augsburg somewhere between 1497 and 1504, for it is not dated. The only copy ever known to bibliographers is not now to be traced. Stevens, _Recoll. of James Lenox_, p. 174. It measures 13½ × 8½ inches, with a German title and inscription, to be translated as follows:— “This figure represents to us the people and island which have been discovered by the Christian King of Portugal, or his subjects. The people are thus naked, handsome, brown, well-shaped in body; their heads, necks, arms, private parts, feet of men and women, are a little covered with feathers. The men also have many precious stones on their faces and breasts. No one else has anything, but all things are in common. And the men have as wives those who please them, be they mothers, sisters, or friends; therein make they no distinction. They also fight with each other; they also eat each other, even those who are slain, and hang the flesh of them in the smoke. They become a hundred and fifty years of age, and have no government.” The present engraving follows the fac-simile given in Stevens’s _American Bibliographer_, pp. 7, 8. Cf. Sabin, vol. i. no. 1,031; vol. v. no. 20,257; Harrisse, _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no. 20.]