foundations of three stone buildings were also marked out and the
excavations put in hand. These buildings were the church, the
storehouse, and a residence for Columbus as Governor-General. The stores
were landed, the horses and cattle accommodated ashore, the provisions,
ammunition, and agricultural implements also. Labourers were set to
digging out the foundations of the stone buildings, carpenters to cutting
down trees and running up the light wooden houses that were to serve as
barracks for the present; masons were employed in hewing stones and
building landing-piers; and all the crowd of well-born adventurers were
set to work with their hands, much to their disgust. This was by no
means the life they had imagined, and at the first sign of hard work they
turned sulky and discontented. There was, to be sure, some reason for
their discontent. Things had not quite turned out as Columbus had
promised they should; there was no store of gold, nor any sign of great
desire on the part of the natives to bring any; and to add to their other
troubles, illness began to break out in the camp. The freshly-turned
rank soil had a bad effect on the health of the garrison; the lake, which
had promised to be so pleasant a feature in the new town, gave off
dangerous malarial vapours at night; and among the sufferers from this
trouble was Columbus himself, who endured for some weeks all the pains
and lassitude of the disagreeable fever.

The ships were now empty and ready for the return voyage, and as soon as
Columbus was better he set to work to face the situation. After all his
promises it would never do to send them home empty or in ballast; a cargo
of stones from the new-found Indies would not be well received in Spain.
The natives had told him that somewhere in the island existed the gold
mines of Cibao, and he determined to make an attempt to find these, so
that he could send his ships home laden with a cargo that would be some
indemnity for the heavy cost of the expedition and some compensation for