a failure of farming on Santo Domingo, and since debtors were not allowed to leave the island, had had a friend smuggle him aboard in this fashion.[1] When the cask had been opened, early in the voyage, the indignant Enciso was for setting him ashore on a desert island, but was persuaded not to do so. Now the pedantic lawyer turned on Pizarro's starving wretches, accused them of desertion, and insisted on their going back with him to San Sebastian. On the way, they were all shipwrecked again, and when they arrived at their destination they found the fort and settlement utterly destroyed, the Indians fiercer than ever, and no food. What was to be done?
Balboa showed the way. He had sailed this way before, with Bastidas, and across the gulf they had found both food and gold, on the shores of the river Darien. Most important of all, the Indians there used no poisoned arrows.
At once Enciso and Balboa, with a hundred men-at-arms, crossed to the western shore, where five hundred warriors were drawn up to meet them. Kneeling devoutly on the beach, the Spaniards vowed that if victorious they would dedicate both the spoils and their first settlement to the shrine, much reverenced in Seville, of Santa Maria de la Antigua. Then, rising, they rushed like starving wolves on the Indians. There was no poison in their arrows, and those that were not cut down in the first charge fled at once.
Provisions and gold were found in the Indian town, San Sebastian was abandoned, and Enciso founded the
- ↑ Oviedo says Balboa was concealed in the folds of a sail.
