[Note 1: Lizards, by which are doubtless meant alligators.]
Acting upon the advice of Lopez and other officers, the ships rendered useless by age were abandoned to be destroyed by the waves; this decision was likewise adopted to encourage serious projects of colonisation by cutting off all hope of escape. With the more solid timbers and with beams cut from the trees, which in that neighbourhood sometimes attain an extraordinary height and size, the Spaniards built a new caravel to provide for unforeseen wants.
When the captain of one of the brigantines, Pedro de Umbria, reached Veragua, a catastrophe befell. Being a man of irritable disposition, he resolved to separate from his companions and seek a region where he might establish himself independently. He selected twelve sailors and departed in the largest ship's boat belonging to one of the greater vessels. The tide rolls in on that coast with as dreadful roarings as those which are described as prevailing at Scylla in Sicily, dashing themselves against the rocks projecting into the sea, from which they are thrown back with great violence, causing an agitation which the Spaniards call resacca.[2] Umbria's boat was caught in a whirlpool like a mountain torrent which, despite his efforts, dashed him into the sea and sunk his barque before the eyes of his companions. Only one Spaniard, who was a skilful swimmer, succeeded in saving himself by clutching a rock which rose slightly above the waters, and there held out against the raging tempest. The next day when the sea had abated and the tide had left the reef dry, he rejoined his companions, and the eleven others perished. The other Spaniards did not venture to take to their barques but landed direct from the brigantines.
[Note 2: Meaning the undertow of surf.]
After a stop of a few days they ascended the river, and found some native villages, called in the language of the country mumu. They set to work to construct a fort on the bank, and as the country round about seemed sterile, they sowed, as in Europe, a valley of which the soil seemed apt for cultivation. While these things were happening in Veragua, one of the Spaniards, who was stationed on a high rock which served as a lookout, casting his eyes to the west, cried "A sail! a sail!" As the ship approached it was seen to be a barque under full sail. The newcomers were joyfully welcomed. The boat turned out to be a barque belonging to the caravel of Nicuesa, which could only carry five persons; but as a matter of fact there were only three men on board. These men had stolen the barque because Nicuesa had refused to believe them when they assured him that he had passed beyond Veragua, leaving that place behind him to the east. Seeing that Nicuesa and his men were perishing of hunger, they resolved to try their fortunes in that barque, and to attempt to discover Veragua by themselves, and they had succeeded. They described Nicuesa as wandering aimlessly, after having lost his caravel in a storm, and that he was practically lost among salt marshes and desert coasts, being destitute of everything and reduced to a most miserable plight, since for seventy days he had eaten nothing but herbs and roots and drunk nothing but water, of which indeed he had not always enough. This all came about because, in seeking Veragua, he persisted in his course towards the west.
The country had already been reconnoitred by that great discoverer of vast regions, Christopher Columbus, who had given it the name of Gracias à Dios; in the native tongue it was called Cerabaro. The river which the Spaniards call San Mateo divides it into two portions, and it is distant about one hundred and thirty miles from western Veragua. I do not give the native names of this river or of other localities, because the explorers who have returned to Spain do not themselves know them. The report of these three sailors prompted Pedro de Olano, one of Nicuesa's two captains and his deputy judge, to send one of the brigantines piloted by the same sailors, to find and bring back Nicuesa. Upon his arrival, Nicuesa ordered Olano, who had been appointed governor pending his return, to be put into irons, and imprisoned, accusing him of treason for having usurped the authority of governor and not having concerned himself sufficiently, while enjoying the command, about the disappearance of his chief. He likewise accused him of negligence in sending so late to search for him.
In like manner Nicuesa reproached everybody in arrogant terms, and within a few days he commanded that they should make ready to depart. The colonists begged him not to decide hastily, and to wait at least until the crops that they had sown were harvested, as the harvesting season was now at hand. Four months had now passed since they had sown. Nicuesa refused to listen to anything, declaring they must leave such an unfortunate country as quickly as possible. He therefore carried off everything that had been landed at the Gulf of Veragua, and ordered the ships to sail towards the east. After sailing sixteen miles a young Genoese, called Gregorio, recognised the vicinity of a certain harbour, to prove which he declared that they would find buried in the sand an anchor which had been abandoned there, and under a tree near to the harbour, a spring of clear water. Upon landing they found the anchor and the spring, and gave thanks for the excellent memory of Gregorio, who, alone amongst the numerous sailors who had sailed these seas together with Columbus, remembered anything about these particulars. Columbus had named this place Porto Bello.
Hunger induced them to land at several places, and everywhere their reception by the natives was hostile. The Spaniards were now reduced by famine to such a state of weakness that they could no longer fight against natives, even naked ones, who offered the least resistance. Twenty of them died from wounds of poisoned arrows. It was decided to leave one half of the company at Porto Bello, and with the other half Nicuesa continued his voyage eastwards. Twenty-eight miles from Porto Bello and near a cape which Columbus had formerly called Marmor, he decided to found a fort, but the want of food had too much reduced the strength of his men to permit this labour. Nicuesa nevertheless erected a small tower, sufficient to withstand the first attacks of the natives, which he called Nombre de Dios. From the day he had left Veragua, not only during his march across the sandy plains but also because of the famine which prevailed while he was constructing the tower, he lost two hundred of the men who still survived. Thus it was that, little by little, his numerous company of seven hundred and eighty-five men was reduced to about one hundred.
While Nicuesa, with a handful of wretched creatures, struggled in this manner against ill fortune, rivalry for the command broke out in Uraba. A certain Vasco Nuñez Balboa[3] who, in the opinion of most people, was a man of action rather than of judgment, stirred up his companions against the judge Enciso, declaring that the latter possessed no royal patents giving him judicial powers. The fact of his being chosen by Hojeda to act as governor was not enough. He succeeded in impeding Enciso in his functions, and the colonists of Uraba chose some of their own men to administer the colony; but dissension was not long in dividing them, especially when their leader Hojeda did not return. They thought the latter dead, of his wound, and disputed among themselves as to whether they should not summon Nicuesa to take his place. Some influential members of the council who had been friends of Nicuesa and could not endure the insolence of Vasco Nuñez thought they ought to scour the country in search of Nicuesa; for they had heard it reported that he had abandoned Uraba on account of the barrenness of the soil. Possibly he was wandering in unknown places like Enciso and other victims of wrecks; therefore they should not rest until they had discovered whether he and his associates still lived.
[Note 3: Balboa was of a noble family of Xeres de los Caballeros, and was born in 1475. He came to Hispaniola in 1500, where he suffered extreme poverty. He went on board Enciso's vessel as a stowaway.]