on board ship.

When an expedition is composed largely of hot-headed youths trained to
the use of arms, each of whom has a code of honor as sensitive as a
mimosa plant and as prickly as a cactus, the lot of their commanders is
not happy. It may have been Ojeda's treasured talisman which saved him
from several sudden deaths during the following weeks, but Juan de la
Cosa privately believed it was partly the memory of the pig. The young
man had what might in another time and civilization have developed into
a sense of humor. It would not do for a hero with the world before him
to get himself sent back to Spain because of some trivial personal
quarrel.

On reaching Hispaniola the adventurers found plenty of real occupation
awaiting them. The little colony which the Admiral had left at Navidad
on his first voyage had been wiped out. The natives timidly explained
that a fierce chief from the interior, Caonaba, had killed or captured
all the forty men of the garrison and destroyed their fort. Colón was
obliged to remodel all his plans at a moment's notice. Instead of
finding a colony well under way, and in control of the wild tribes or at
least friendly with them, he found the wreck of a luckless attempt at
settlement, and the kindly native villagers turned aloof and suspicious,
and living in dread of a second raid by Caonaba. He chose a site for a
second settlement on the coast, where ships could find a harbor, not far
from gold-bearing mountains which the natives described and called
Cibao. This sounded rather like Cipangu.

Ojeda led an exploring party into the mountains, and found gold nuggets
in the beds of the streams. In March a substantial little town had been
built, with a church, granary, market-square, and a stone wall around