On the 25th November 1493, Columbus once more dropped his anchor in the harbour of Monte Christi, and a party was sent ashore to prospect for a site suitable for the new town which he intended to build, for he was not satisfied with the situation of La Navidad.  There was a large river close by; and while the party was surveying the land they came suddenly upon two dead bodies lying by the river-side, one with a rope round its neck and the other with a rope round its feet.  The bodies were too much decomposed to be recognisable; nevertheless to the party rambling about in the sunshine and stillness of that green place the discovery was a very gruesome one.  They may have thought much, but they said little.  They returned to the ship, and resumed their search on the next day, when they found two more corpses, one of which was seen to have a large quantity of beard.  As all the natives were beardless this was a very significant and unpleasant discovery, and the explorers returned at once and reported what they had seen to Columbus.  He thereupon set sail for La Navidad, but the navigation off that part of the coast was necessarily slow because of the number of the shoals and banks, on one of which the Admiral’s ship had been lost the year before; and the short voyage occupied three days.

They arrived at La Navidad late on the evening of the 27th—­too late to make it advisable to land.  Some natives came out in a canoe, rowed round the Admiral’s ship, stopped and looked at it, and then rowed away again.  When the fleet had anchored Columbus ordered two guns to be fired; but there was no response except from the echoes that went rattling among the islands, and from the frightened birds that rose screaming and circling from the shore.  No guns and no signal fires; no sign of human habitation whatever; and no sound out of the weird darkness except the lap of the water and the call of the birds . . . .  The night passed in anxiety and depression, and in a certain degree of nervous tension, which was relieved at two or three o’clock in the morning by the sound of paddles and the looming of a canoe through the dusky starlight.  Native voices were heard from the canoe asking in a loud voice for the Admiral; and when the visitors had been directed to the Marigalante they refused to go on board until Columbus himself had spoken to them, and they had seen by the light of a lantern that it was the Admiral himself.  The chief of them was a cousin of Guacanagari, who said that the King was ill of a wound in his leg, or that he would certainly have come himself to welcome the Admiral.  The Spaniards?  Yes, they were well, said the young chief; or rather, he added ominously, those that remained were well, but some had died of illness, and some had been killed in quarrels that had arisen among them.  He added that the province had been invaded by two neighbouring kings who had burned many of the native houses.  This news, although grave, was a relief from the dreadful uncertainty that had prevailed in the early part of the night, and the Admiral’s company, somewhat consoled, took a little sleep.