HIS LAST ADVENTURE The Fourth Voyage.—His hour of rest, however, was not yet come. Ever anxious to serve their Catholic highnesses, "and particularly the queen," he had determined to find a strait through which he might penetrate westwards into Portuguese Asia. After the usual inevitable delays his prayers were granted, and on May 9, with four caravels and i 5o men, he weighed anchor from Cadiz, and sailed on his fourth and last great voyage. He first be took himself to the relief of the Portuguese fort of Arzilla, which had been besieged by the Moors, but the siege had been raised before he arrived. He put to sea westwards once more, and on June 15 discovered the island of Martinino (probably St. Lucia). He had received positive instructions from his sovereigns on no account to touch at Hispaniola; but his largest caravel was greatly in need of repairs, and he had no choice but to abandon her or disobey orders. He preferred the latter alternative, and sent a boat ashore to Ovando, asking for a new ship and for permission to enter th,: harbour to weather a hurricane which he saw was coming on. But his requests were refused, and he coasted the island, casting anchor under lee of the land. Here he weathered the storm, which drove the other caravels out to sea, and annihilated the homeward-bound fleet, the richest that had till then been sent from Hispaniola. Roldan Bobadilla perished with others of the admiral's enemies; and Fernando Columbus, who accom panied his father on this voyage, wrote long afterwards, "I am satisfied it was the hand of God, for had they arrived in Spain they would have never been punished as their crimes deserved, but rather been favoured and preferred." After recruiting his flotilla at Azua, Columbus put in at Jaquimo and refitted his four vessels; and on July 14, 1502 he steered for Jamaica. For several days the ships wandered painfully among the keys and shoals he had named the Garden of the Queen, and only an opportune easterly wind prevented the crews from open mutiny. The first land sighted (July 3o) was the islet of Guanaja, about 4o m. east of the coast of Honduras. Here he got news from an old Indian of a rich and vast country lying to the eastward, which he at once concluded must be the long-sought-for empire of the grand khan. Steering along the coast of Honduras, great hard ships were endured, but nothing approaching his ideal was dis covered. On Sept. 12 Cape Gracias-a-Dios was rounded. The men had become clamorous and insubordinate ; not until Dec. 5, however, would he tack about and retrace his course. It now became his intention to plant a colony on the river Veragua, which was afterwards to give his descendants a title of nobility ; but he had hardly put about when he was caught in a storm, which lasted eight days, wrenched and strained his crazy, worm-eaten ships, severely, and finally, on Epiphany Sunday 1503, blew him into an embouchure which he named Belem or Bethlehem. Gold was very plentiful in this place, and here he determined to found his settlement. By the end of March 1503 a number of huts had been run up, and in these the adelantado (Bartholomew Colum bus), with 8o men, was to remain, while Christopher returned to Spain for men and supplies. Quarrels, however, arose with the natives ; the cacique was made prisoner, but escaped again ; and before Columbus could leave the coast he had to abandon a caravel, to take the settlers on board, and to relinquish the enter prise of colonization. Steering eastwards, he left a second caravel at Puerto Bello'; he thence bore northwards for Cuba, where he obtained supplies f roin the natives. From Cuba he bore up for Jamaica, and there, in the harbour of San Gloria, now St. Ann's bay, he ran his ships aground in a small inlet still called Don Christopher's cove (June 23, 1503).
The expedition was received with great kindness by the natives, and here Columbus remained upwards of a year, awaiting the return of his lieutenant Diego Mendez, whom he had despatched to Ovando for assistance. During his critical sojourn here, the admiral suffered much from disease and from the lawlessness of his followers, whose misconduct had alienated the natives, and provoked them to withhold their accustomed supplies, until he dexterously worked upon their superstitions by prognosticating an eclipse. Two vessels having at last arrived for his relief, Colum bus left Jamaica on June 28, 1504, and, after calling at Hispaniola, set sail for Spain on Sept. 12. After a tempestuous voyage he landed once more at San Lucar on Nov. 7, 1504. As he was too ill to go to court, his son Diego was sent thither in his place, to look after his interests and transact his business. Letter after letter followed the young man from Seville—one by the hands of Amerigo Vespucci. A licence to ride on mule-back was granted him on Feb. 23, 1505; and in the following May he was removed to the court at Segovia, and thence again to Valladolid. On the landing of Philip and Juana at Coruna (April 25, i5o6), although "much oppressed with the gout and troubled to see himself put by his rights," he is known to have sent off the adelantado to pay them his duty and to assure them that he was yet able to do them extraordinary service. The last documentary note of him is contained in a final codicil to the will of 1498, made at Valla dolid on May 19, 15o6. By this the old will is confirmed; the mayorazgo is bequeathed to his son Diego and his heirs male, failing these to Fernando, his second son, and failing these to the heirs male of Bartholomew ; only in case of the extinction of the male line, direct or collateral, is it to descend to the females of the family ; and those into whose hands it may fall are never to diminish it, but always to increase and ennoble it by all means possible. The head of the house is to sign himself "The Admiral." A tenth of the annual income is to be set aside yearly for distribu tion among the poor relations of the house. A chapel is founded and endowed for the saying of masses. Beatriz Enriquez is left to the care of the young admiral. Among other legacies is one of "half a mark of silver to a Jew who used to live at the gate of the Jewry, in Lisbon." The codicil was written and signed with the admiral's own hand. Next day (May 20, 1506) he died.
After the funeral ceremonies at Valladolid, Columbus's remains were transferred to the Carthusian monastery of Santa Maria de las Cuevas, Seville, where the bones of his son Diego, the second admiral, were also laid. Exhumed in 1542, the bodies of both father and son were taken over sea to Hispaniola and interred in the cathedral of San Domingo. In 1795-96, on the cession of that island to the French, the relics were re-exhumed and transferred to the cathedral of Havana, whence, after the Spanish American War of 1898 and the loss of Cuba, they were finally removed to Seville cathedral, where they remain. The present heir and representative of Columbus belongs to the Larreategui family, descendants of the discoverer through the female line, and retains the titles of admiral and duke of Veragua.
In person Columbus was tall and shapely. The only authentic portrait of him is that which once belonged to Paulus Jovius, and is still in the possession of the de Orchi family (related to Jovius by female descent) at Como. It shows us a venerable man with clean-shaven face, thin grey hair, high forehead, sad thoughtful eyes. It bears the inscription Columbus Lygur. novi orbis repertor.