earnest on their farms; and there descended upon island affairs a brief
St. Martin's Summer of peace before the final winter of blight and death
set in. The Admiral, however, was obviously in precarious health; his
ophthalmia became worse, and the stability of his mind suffered. He had
dreams and visions of divine help and comfort, much needed by him, poor
soul, in all his tribulations and adversities. Even yet the cup was not
full.


We must now turn back to Spain and try to form some idea of the way in
which the doings of Columbus were being regarded there if we are to
understand the extraordinary calamity that was soon to befall him. It
must be remembered first of all that his enterprise had never really been
popular from the first. It was carried out entirely by the energy and
confidence of Queen Isabella, who almost alone of those in power believed
in it as a thing which was certain to bring ultimate glory, as well as
riches and dominion, to Spain and the Catholic faith. As we have seen,
there had been a brief ebullition of popular favour when Columbus
returned from his first voyage, but it was a popularity excited solely by
the promises of great wealth that Columbus was continually holding forth.
When those promises were not immediately fulfilled popular favour
subsided; and when the adventurers who had gone out to the new islands on
the strength of those promises had returned with shattered health and
empty pockets there was less chance than ever of the matter being
regarded in its proper light by the people of Spain. Columbus had either
found a gold mine or he had found nothing--that was the way in which the
matter was popularly regarded. Those who really understood the
significance of his discoveries and appreciated their scientific
importance did not merely stay at home in Spain and raise a clamour; they
went out in the Admiral's footsteps and continued the work that he had