That was a curious way to discover Cathay, was it not?
Then Columbus, fearing another shipwreck or another mutiny, sailed back again to the city of Isabella.

His men were discontented, his ships were battered and leaky, his hunt for gold and palaces had again proved a failure.

He sailed around Jamaica; he got as far as the eastern end of Hayti, and then, just as he was about to run into the harbor of Isabella, all his strength gave out.

The strain and the disappointment were too much for him; he fell very, very sick, and on the twenty-ninth of September, 1494, after just about five months of sailing and wandering and hunting, the Nina ran into Isabella Harbor with Columbus so sick from fever that he could not raise his hand or his head to give an order to his men.
For five long months Columbus lay in his stone house on the plaza or square of Isabella a very sick man.

His brother Bartholomew had come across from Spain with three supply ships, bringing provisions for the colony.