But this time, another canoe was sent with that under the command of Mendez.

He sailed again, storing his boats with cassava bread and calabashes of water.
Bartholomew Columbus, with his armed band, marched along the coast, as the two canoes sailed along the shore.
Waiting then for a clear day, Mendez struck northward, on the passage, which was long for such frail craft, to San Domingo.

It was eight months before Columbus heard of them.

Of those eight months, the history is of dismal waiting, mutiny and civil war.

It is pathetic, indeed, that a little body of men, who had been, once and again, saved from death in the most remarkable way, could not live on a fertile island, in a beautiful climate, without quarrelling with each other.
Two officers of Columbus, Porras and his brother, led the sedition.