weary men. For on this second voyage, he had arrived with 

 seventeen vessels carrying more than twelve hundred sea- 

 men, colonists and soldiers, his mission to establish a peiTna- 

 nent colony close to the source of gold, which was to aug- 

 ment Spain's wealth and power. 



This fleet, having just arrived, was standing on and off 

 outside the reefs a league from shore on the evening of 

 November twenty-eighth, "where the Christians had been 

 left. The Admiral ordered two lombards to be fired in or- 

 der to see if the Christians who had been left with Gau- 

 canagari would answer, since lombards had been left with 

 them." There was no reply. 



Columbus, already alarmed at the discovery of the 

 decomposed bodies of two bearded white men on the 

 shore close to his last anchorage, now felt sure that his 

 colony had met catastrophe. A short time later his ship 

 was approached by Indian messengers in a canoe. They 

 informed him that their chief, Guacanagari, was now liv- 

 ing in a village some distance away, as there had been a 

 battle with two other Indian kings and the village had 

 been burned. They admitted that some of the Spaniards 

 whom Columbus had left "had died of grief and others 

 as a result of quarrels that had arisen between them." 

 But they also indicated that still others were alive and well. 



"Next day they [the fleet] expected Guacanagari in 

 the morning, but he never came, and after a while some 

 landed by order of the Admiral and went to the place 

 where Guacanagari usually was. They found it burned, 

 and a hut, strengthened with a palisade, where the Chris- 

 tians had hved and kept their property, was likewise burned 

 and destroyed." 



After further investigation, Columbus pieced together 

 what had happened. Scarcely had he sailed for Spain with 

 the Nina than the Castilians who were left behind had 

 aroused the anger of the friendly Indians of the village 



Search for the Santa Maria 197 



