It is almost all the fancy of a wise man who has studied it out for himself, and says he believes there was such a city.

But he does not really know it as we know of the city of Isabella, and so we must still say that Christopher Columbus really discovered America and built the first fort and the first city on its shores--although he thought he was doing all this in Asia, on the shores of China or Japan.
When Columbus had his people nearly settled in their new city of Isabella, he remembered that the main thing he was sent to do was to get together as much gold as possible.

His men were already grumbling.

They had come over the sea, they said, not to dig cellars and build huts, but to find gold--gold that should make them rich and great and happy.
So Columbus set to work gold-hunting.

At first things seemed to promise success.