As Columbus had been told _not_ to stop there till his return trip,
he sent one of the faster ships ahead with a letter to Governor Ovando,
explaining that he wanted to buy another ship, and also that he was
seeking protection from a hurricane that he saw approaching. Knowing the
peculiarities of weather in those regions, he was so sure of the storm
that he advised Ovando to hold back any vessels that might be about to
depart for Spain.

Our weather-wise old Admiral was not mistaken in his prophecy. A furious
West Indian hurricane broke on the last day of June; but his poor little
ships, instead of lying safe in the shelter of San Domingo harbor, were
exposed to all the ravages of the storm. Why? Because Ovando had refused
to let him enter the port! A cruel insult; but the Admiral was too busy
just then to brood over it. He must hastily draw in under the lee of the
land and wait for the hurricane to pass.

It was not the sort that passed, for it stayed and stayed till it was
worn out by its own fury. "Eighty-eight days," Columbus wrote to his
sovereign, "did this fearful tempest continue, during which I was at sea
and saw neither sun nor stars. My ships lay exposed with sails torn; and
anchors, cables, rigging, boats, and a quantity of provisions lost....
Other tempests have I experienced, but none of so long duration or so
frightful as this."

And all this perilous time, when men and vessels narrowly escaped going
to the bottom, the discoverer of the New World was denied the privilege
of the only seaport in it! It makes one's blood boil, even to-day, to
think that at San Domingo the Comendador Ovando and the whole group of
ungrateful landsmen went safely to bed every night in the very houses