Nicuefa stays at Nombre de Dios.

wards the east. When they had gone four leagues, one of the feamen happened to recollect that a port was hereabouts. He had been with the "Old Admiral," for fo Columbus was called, when he discovered this province of Veragua; and this mariner faid that, if he were right, there would be found half-buried in the fand an anchor, and near it a tree under which there would be a spring of fresh water. They went and found the mariner right; and the port proved to be Portobello, fo named by Columbus. Here they endeavoured to make an entrance into the country, in order to get some supplies of any kind; but they were fo weak they could hardly hold their weapons in their hands. The Indians fucceeded in refisting them, and killed twenty. From Portobello they went failing towards the east, until they came to another harbour. "In the name of God (en nombre de Dios) let us stay here," they exclaimed; and "Nombre de Dios" is the name the port has ever fince retained. What poetry and history there are in names! Here they contrived to build a little wooden fort, and Nicuefa fent for the rest of the men from the river Belem. Since his departure from Belem he had lost two hundred more men; and now, of the seven hundred and eighty five men who came out with

him from Hifpaniola, there remained, when he had built this little fort in December 1510, only about a hundred men. Having finished this fort, he commenced his attacks upon the Indians, but the provisions gained by these attacks feldom lafted long. Hunger, which had dogged the steps of this expedition from the night of that fatal tempeft and dispersion, still relentlessly pursued it. At last all the ordinary rules of discipline were at an end; and there could not even be found one man in the company ftrong enough to do the duty of a fentinel.

Nicuefa.

It cannot be faid, however, that these men were utterly neglected by Fortune. They were just at this moment in a state of extreme and apparently hopeless peril, when Colmenares, pursuing fteadily Colmehis course eastward, came upon their track and nares finds found them. Great was the delight of the feventy* men who remained, for their number had now dwindled to seventy: and Nicuefa's delight was not the leaft, when, shedding tears, he threw himself at the feet of one who brought him present fafety and fuch good hopes for the future. In

It may fhow the difficulty of making anything like a clear account of these events, to find that Colmenares, the man of all others who should have known, makes the numbers left two hunall the best authorities say seventy or thereabouts.

dred;

folly.

deed it was a change of fortune fuch as is feldom seen except in fiction. According to Peter Martyr's account, Colmenares found Nicuefa " of all "living men the most unfortunate, in a manner " dried up with extreme hunger, filthy and hor"rible to behold;" and now he was fummoned to become governor to those who remained of his rival Ojeda's force, and who, unfortunate as they had been, had at any rate made a less wretched fettlement than Nicuefa and his men could boast of having done.

But Nicuefa's good fenfe and good temper were not now to be recovered by any gleam of good fortune. In fact, he seems to have acted, or rather to have talked, which is often more dangerous, like a man bereft of common sense. Nicuefa's Hearing that Ojeda's company had collected gold, upon which, as, ftrictly speaking, they were settled in the country affigned to him, he had fome claim, he gave out that he should take it away. The disgust which the deputies from Darien began at once to conceive for him may be easily imagined; nor was this disgust likely to be left to wear away by any good words that would be faid of him by his own men at Nombre de Dios. Lope de Olano, though in chains, contrived to put in his word, privately telling the new comers

that Nicuefa would do with them as he did with his own people, when they fent for him from the defert island. Still, had Nicuefa been fwift in acting upon his good news, he might have anticipated the confequences of his foolish and tyrannous fayings; but, while he fent on to Darien a caravel in which there were many of the people who murmured against him, he himself in the brigantine ftopped on the way for about a week to reconnoitre fome little iflands, and to capture Indians-for which there came a terrible retribution. No fooner had the people in the caravel reached Darien, than they began to influence the colonists there against him, infomuch fo, that the Darienites became quite mad with themselves at their folly in, having invited Nicuefa. It was as if the frogs in the fable had already foreseen the conduct of king Stork before he came amongst them. It may easily be imagined, and is generally reported, that Vafco Nuñez did what he could to incite the people against the coming governor; but Vasco's proceedings were very secret, and, it is faid, he canvaffed the principal perfons, man by man, convincing them of their error, and showing them the remedy for it.

.

When Nicuefa neared the place of disembarkation, expecting, no doubt, to be received with

Nicuefa

rejected by

the men

what pomp and honour men fo tattered and buffeted would still endeavour to fhow their new chief, he found an array of armed men drawn up on the shore, looking as if they meant to repel an invafion rather than to receive a governor. Amongst them were Vasco Nuñez and the procurador of the fettlement; and this latter officer, in a formal manner, proclaimed aloud that Niof Darien. cuefa fhould not be permitted to land, but should return to his own fettlement at Nombre de Dios. At this astounding reception Nicuefa for a fhort time could hardly speak: then he said, "Gentle"men, you yourselves fent for me. Let me land, " and we will talk the matter over: you have to "hear me, and I have to hear you; and we have "to understand one another. Afterwards do with " me what you will." This speech seems to contain fome of his former gracioufness of manner; but they knew him too well now, and fternly refused to have anything to do with him.

It was evening, and he drew off for that night, intending to come the next day, and fee whether they would change their minds.

The next day, when he appeared, they called him to come to them, meaning to take him prifoner, for, when he landed, they rushed upon' him, but he fled, and, being remarkably fwift of