Columbus sent Ojeda into the gold mountains with fifty armed men to make an alliance with Canabao.  Canabao met this party with a good deal of perplexity.  He undoubtedly knew that he had given the Spaniards good reason for doubting him.  It is said that he had put to death twenty Spaniards by treasonable means, but it is to be remembered that this is the statement of his enemies.  He, however, came to Columbus with a large body of his people, all armed.  When he was asked why he brought so large a force with him, he said that so great a king as he, could not go anywhere without a fitting military escort.  But Ojeda did not hesitate to take him prisoner and carry him into Isabella, bound.  As has been said, he was eventually sent to Spain, but he died on the passage.

Columbus made another fortress, or tower, on the border of King Guarionexius’s country, between his kingdom and Cipango.  He gave to this post the name of the “Tower of the Conception,” and meant it to be a rallying point for the miners and others, in case of any uprising of the natives against them.  This proved to be an important centre for mining operations.  From this place, what we should call a nugget of gold, which one of the chiefs brought in, was sent to Spain.  It weighed twenty ounces.  A good deal of interest attached also to the discovery of amber, one mass of which weighed three hundred pounds.  Such discoveries renewed the interest and hope which had been excited in Spain by the first accounts of Hispaniola.

Columbus satisfied himself that he left the island really subdued; and in this impression he was not mistaken.  Certain that his presence in Spain was needed, if he would maintain his own character against the attacks of the disaffected Spaniards who had gone before him, he set sail on the Nina on the tenth of March, taking with him as a consort a caravel which had been built at Isabella.  He did not arrive in Cadiz till the eleventh of June, having been absent from Spain two years and nine months.

His return to Spain at this time gave Isabella another opportunity to show the firmness of her character, and the determination to which alone belongs success.

The excitement and popularity which attended the return from the first voyage had come to an end.  Spain was in the period of reaction.  The disappointment which naturally follows undue expectations and extravagant prophecies, was, in this instance, confirmed by the return of discontented adventurers.  Four hundred years have accustomed the world to this reflex flow of disappointed colonists, unable or unwilling to work, who come back from a new land to say that its resources have been exaggerated.  In this case, where everything was measured by the standard of gold, it was certainly true that the supply of gold received from the islands was very small as compared with the expenses of the expedition which had been sent out.