Chapter IV.

Proposition of Columbus Relative to the Recovery of the Holy Sepulchre.

[1500-1501.]



Columbus remained in the city of Granada upwards of nine months,
endeavoring to extricate his affairs from the confusion into which they
had been thrown by the rash conduct of Bobadilla, and soliciting the
restoration of his offices and dignities. During this time he constantly
experienced the smiles and attentions of the sovereigns, and promises were
repeatedly made him that he should ultimately be reinstated in all his
honors. He had long since, however, ascertained the great interval that
may exist between promise and performance in a court. Had he been of a
morbid and repining spirit, he had ample food for misanthropy. He beheld
the career of glory which he had opened, thronged by favored adventurers;
he witnessed preparations making to convey with unusual pomp a successor
to that government from which he had been so wrongfully and rudely
ejected; in the meanwhile his own career was interrupted, and as far as
public employ is a gauge of royal favor, he remained apparently in
disgrace.

His sanguine temperament was not long to be depressed; if checked in one
direction it broke forth in another. His visionary imagination was an
internal light, which, in the darkest times, repelled all outward gloom,
and filled his mind with splendid images and glorious speculations. In
this time of evil, his vow to furnish, within seven years from the time of