kept asking for.

At last, however, the queen, Isabella, who had always had more interest
in Columbus and his plans than had the king, her husband, said a good
word for him. The six ships were given him, men and supplies were put
on board and on the twentieth of May, 1498, the Admiral set out on his
third voyage to what every one now called the Indies.

There was not nearly so much excitement among the people about this
voyage. Cathay and its riches had almost become an old story; at any
rate it was a story that was not altogether believed in. Great crowds
did not now follow the Admiral from place to place begging him to take
them with him to the Indies. The hundreds of sick, disappointed and
angry men who had come home poor when they expected to be rich, and sick
when they expected to be strong, had gone through the land, and folks
began to think that Cathay was after all only a dream, and that the
stories of great gold and of untold riches which they had heard were but
"sailors' yarns" which no one could believe.

So it was hard to get together a crew large enough to man the six
vessels that made up the fleet. At last, however, all was ready, and
with a company of two hundred men, besides his sailors, Columbus hoisted
anchor in the little port of San Lucar just north of Cadiz, near the
mouth of the Guadalquivir river, and sailed away into the West.

This time he was determined to find the continent of Asia. Even though,
as you remember, he made his men sign a paper saying that the coast of
Cuba was Asia, he really seems to have doubted this himself. He felt
that he had only found islands. If so, he said, Cathay must be the other
side of those islands; and Cathay is what I must find.