LIFE A N D V O Y A G E S
106
OF
[BOOK
II.
raiment, that he might make a respectable appearance at the court. The worthy friar lost no time in communicating the result of his mission; he transmitted the money, and a letter, by the hands of an inhabitant of Palos, to the physician Garcia Fernandez, who delivered them to Columbus. The latter complied with the instructions conveyed in the epistle.
He exchanged his thread
bare garb for one more suited to the sphere of a court, and, pur chasing a mule, set out once more, reanimated by hopes, for the camp before Granada.* * Most of the particulars of this visit of Columbus to the convent of La Rabida are from the testimony rendered by Garcia Fernandez between Diego, the son of Columbus, and the crown
in the lawsuit