"And then he kept going back. He knew.": Columbus's four voyages in his own words

SUMMARY"And then he kept going back. He knew.": Columbus's four voyages in his own words (Nov 5, 2026). Tito.
RECORD, the four voyages: 1492–93 (three ships); 1493–96 (17 ships and about 1,200 men, with soldiers, horses and war dogs: a military expedition, not a scouting trip; it planted La Isabela on Ayiti as a fortified base in 1494, and in March 1495 Columbus's troops, cavalry and dogs fought the Taíno at the Vega Real); 1498–1500 (reached the mainland at Paria, Venezuela; arrested by Francisco de Bobadilla in 1500 and shipped back to Spain in chains); 1502–04 (Central America, stranded a year on Jamaica). He died in Valladolid in 1506, still calling the lands the Indies.
RECORD, his own words on the shape of the world (1498 letter on the third voyage): he wrote that the world was not round as described but shaped "like a pear," or like a round ball with a raised part "like a woman's nipple," and placed the Earthly Paradise near the mouth of the Orinoco (verify the exact wording against a printed translation, e.g., the Hakluyt Society's Select Letters). CODE for the level-plane Lens: the admiral himself rejected the round world his teachers taught.
RECORD, he kept naming Asia: the 1494 oath that Cuba was the Asian mainland; the 1503 Jamaica letter placing him at "Mango," beside Cathay (P626)

PATTERNfour voyages, a military fleet on the second, arrest and chains on the third, and Asia named every time, in his own hand

LENS (WW9)he knew where he was: India Superior, the Great Khan's lands; he kept coming back for it

OPENwhat he was sent back to find each time (the royal instructions for each voyage); the 1498 letter's full text. Needs deep research.