Harbor of San Domingo.--Exposed to a Violent Tempest.

[1502.]



Age was rapidly making its advances upon Columbus when he undertook his
fourth and last voyage of discovery. He had already numbered sixty-six
years, and they were years filled with care and trouble, in which age
outstrips the march of time. His constitution, originally vigorous in the
extreme, had been impaired by hardships and exposures in every clime, and
silently preyed upon by the sufferings of the mind. His frame, once
powerful and commanding, and retaining a semblance of strength and majesty
even in its decay, was yet crazed by infirmities and subject to paroxysms
of excruciating pain. His intellectual forces alone retained their wonted
health and energy, prompting him, at a period of life when most men seek
repose, to sally forth with youthful ardor, on the most toilsome and
adventurous of expeditions.

His squadron for the present voyage consisted of four caravels, the
smallest of fifty tons burden, the largest not exceeding seventy, and the
crews amounting in all to one hundred and fifty men. With this little
armament and these slender barks did the venerable discoverer undertake
the search after a strait, which, if found, must conduct him into the most
remote seas, and lead to a complete circumnavigation of the globe.

In this arduous voyage, however, he had a faithful counselor, and an
intrepid and vigorous coadjutor, in his brother Don Bartholomew, while his
younger son Fernando cheered him with his affectionate sympathy. He had
learnt to appreciate such comforts, from being too often an isolated