310
LIFE
AND
VOYAGES
OF
[BOOK
XV.
indications, an approaching storm. This request was refused by Ovando. Las Casas thinks it probable that he had instructions from the sovereigns not to admit Columbus, and that he was fur ther swayed by prudent considerations, as San Domingo was at that moment crowded with the most virulent enemies of the ad miral, many of them in a high state of exasperation, from recent proceedings which had taken place against them.* When the ungracious refusal of Ovando was brought to Co lumbus, and he found all shelter denied him, he sought at least to avert the danger of the fleet, which was about to sail. He sent back the officer therefore to the governor, entreating him not to permit the fleet to put to sea for several days ; assuring him that there were indubitable signs of an impending tempest. This second request was equally fruitless with the first. The weather, to an inexperienced eye, was fair and tranquil ; the pilots and seamen were impatient to depart. They scoffed at the prediction of the admiral, ridiculing him as a false prophet, and they per suaded Ovando not to detain the fleet on so unsubstantial a pretext. It was hard treatment of Columbus, thus to be denied the re lief which the state of his ships required, and to be excluded in time of distress from the very harbor he had discovered. He retired from the river full of grief and indignation. His crew murmured loudly at being shut out from a port of their own na tion, where even strangers, under similar circumstances, would be admitted. They repined at having embarked with a commander liable to such treatment ; and anticipated nothing but evil from a voyage, in which they were exposed to the dangers of the sea, and repulsed from the protection of the land. Being confident, from his observations of those natural phe* Las Casas, ubi sup.