These mines, once so rich,
have been long abandoned. The original natives of Hispaniola died out,
and negroes have been found unequal to the hardships of mining.
Hispaniola long remained a mere depot of adventurers, whence the great
conquests of Mexico and Peru were supplied with men and arms. - E.
[4] The original, or rather the old translation, is most miserably
defective and confused in its dates about this period, bandying 1499
and 1500 backwards and forwards most ridiculously. This error it has
been anxiously endeavoured to correct in the present version. - E.
[5] This is a most imperfect account of an insurrection which appears to
have broke out against the lieutenant, who seems to have been very
unfit for his situation. - E.
[6] This obviously means trial after condemnation, a procedure which has
been long proverbial in Scotland under the name of Jedwarth justice.
Some similar expression relative to Spain must have been used in the
original, which the translator chose to express by an English
proverbial saying of the same import. - E.
[7] Upon a former occasion, the author had stated that there were four
principal caciques in Hispaniola, each of whom commanded over seventy
or eighty inferior chiefs, so that there may have been 300 caciques
originally. The particulars of the death or massacre of the eighty
caciques here mentioned are nowhere mentioned by our author; who,
confining himself to the actions of his illustrious father, says very
little more about the affairs of Hispaniola. - E.
SECTION XIII.
Account of the Fourth Voyage of Columbus to the West Indies.
We set sail from Cadiz on Monday the 9th of May 1502, and departed from St
Catharines on the 11th of the same month for Arzilla, intending to relieve
the Portuguese in that garrison who were reported to be in great distress;
but when we came there the Moors had raised the siege. The admiral sent on
shore his brother D. Bartholomew and me, along with the other captains of
our ships to visit the governor, who had been wounded by the Moors in an
assault. He returned thanks to the admiral for the visit and his offers of
assistance, sending several gentlemen on board for this purpose, among
whom were some relations of Donna Philippa Moniz, the admirals former
Portuguese wife. We sailed from Arzilla on the same day, and arriving at
Gran Canaria on the 20th of May, casting anchor among the little islands,
and on the 24th went over to Maspalomas in the same island to take in wood
and water for our voyage, and set out next night for the Indies. It
pleased God to give us a fair wind, insomuch that on Wednesday the 15th of
June, without handing our sails the whole way, we arrived at the island of
Matinino.
