expressed a desire to visit Columbus's ship. While on it he managed to
talk with the Caribbean Indians who were aboard. That night the
captives, including a woman whom the Spaniards had named Catalina, made
their escape and were picked up in waiting canoes. Next day when
Columbus sent to Guacanagari to demand their return, the king and his
whole village had disappeared. It would appear that this simple savage
had grown into a far shrewder person than his European host since that
Christmas night when the _Santa Maria_ ran aground.

La Navidad having disappeared, the next concern was to found another
settlement. A point some distance east was chosen, where a beautiful
green vega, or plain, stretched far back from the shore. The city was to
be called Isabella, in honor of the queen who had made possible the
discovery of the new lands. Streets were laid out, a fine church and a
storehouse were planned to be built of stone, and many private houses,
to be built of wood or adobe or any convenient material, were to be
constructed. All this was very fine in plan; but when the men were
called upon to do the hard manual labor that is required for building a
town and planting gardens and fields in an utter wilderness, many of
them murmured. They had not come to do hard work, they had come to pick
up nuggets of gold. Besides, many were ill after the long diet of salted
food and musty bread; even Columbus himself fell ill upon landing, and
could not rise from his bed for weeks; and although all this time he
continued to direct the work of town building, it progressed but slowly.

So there lay the great Christopher Columbus, bedridden and empty-handed,
at the moment when he hoped to be sending back to Spain the gold and
other precious substances collected by the men of his first settlement.
What should he write to the sovereigns waiting for news? He could not
bear to write the sad truth and tell them how all his hopes, and theirs,