The vessel he sailed in was crowded with criminals, discontented persons and Indian captives; amongst the latter was the proud chief Caonabo, but he died during the voyage.
When Columbus arrived this time in Spain, there were neither triumphs nor rejoicings, and he wore as he landed the dress of a Franciscan friar, a long robe, with a cord for a girdle, in sign of humility. He was soon cheered, however, by a kind invitation to court. Ferdinand and Isabella did not yet forget how much they owed to him, and they gave no heed to the complaints that had been made against him, while the massive gold ornaments he had brought with him, and the rich products of the islands induced them to hope that his discoveries would bring them great wealth in the time to come.
He therefore lived in Spain in some degree of comfort until the May of the year 1498, when after many tiresome delays he started on a third voyage with only six ships and took a different route to that he had gone before. From the Cape Verde Isles he went south-west towards the region spreading out eight or ten degrees north and south of the Equator, where the sea is smooth as glass, and the sun shines straight down, and there is not a breath of air to fill a sail. The heat on this occasion was intense, and the mariners very nearly died of thirst when their supply of water was exhausted and they could get no more. Columbus therefore sailed westward, instead of going farther south as he had at first proposed, and one day, just three months after he had left Spain, three mountains seemed to rise up out of the ocean afar, and as he came nearer he found to his joy that all the mountains rose from one island, to which in his thankfulness he gave the name of Trinidad.[16]
On this voyage he also discovered the mouths of the river Orinoco, which it will be seen, by the map of South America, are not very far from the island of Trinidad. Still, Columbus did not think when he landed, that he was treading the shores of a vast new continent, but imagined that it was a part of Asia. After this he found the land the Indians called Paria. The natives here welcomed him kindly, and brought him bread and maize: they were tall and graceful, and their manners were gentle; they wore garments of cotton wrought so beautifully with colours that they looked like rich silks, and they carried targets besides bows and arrows. They had several kinds of liquors which they offered to the Spaniards to drink. One was "white as milk," made from maize; others were nearly black, and tasted as if they were made from unripe fruit.