ng the forbidding shore in a crazy little
ship, landing from time to time, seeing no evidence of the empire,
being indeed unable to penetrate the jungles far enough to find out
much of anything about the countries they passed. Finally, at one
place, that they afterwards called "Starvation {59} Harbor," the men
rebelled and demanded to be led back. They had seen and heard little
of importance. There seemed to be nothing before them but death by
starvation.

Pizarro, however, who has been aptly described as "terribly
persistent," refused to return. He sent the ship back to the Isles of
Pearls for provisions, and grimly clung to the camp on the desolate
shore. When twenty of his men were dead of starvation, the ship came
back with supplies. In one of their excursions, during this wait at
Starvation Harbor, they had stumbled upon and surprised an Indian
village in which they found some clumsy gold ornaments, with further
tales of the El Dorado to the southward. Instead of yielding to the
request of his men that they immediately return in the ship, therefore,
the indomitable Spaniard made sail southward. He landed at various
places, getting everywhere little food and less gold, but everywhere
gaining more and more confirmation that the foundation of his dreams
was not "the baseless fabric of a vision."

In one place they had a fierce battle with the Indians in which two of
the Spaniards were killed and a large number wounded. Pizarro now
determined to return to Panama with the little gold he had picked up
and the large stories he had heard, there to recruit his band and to
start out again. Almagro meanwhile had set forth with his ship with
sixty or seventy additional adventurers. He easily followed the traces
of Pizarro on the shore but the ships did not meet. Almagro went
farther south than Pizarro. At one landing-place he had a furious
battle with the natives in which he lost an eye. He turned back after
reaching the mouth of the river San Juan in about the fourth {60}
parallel of north latitude. He, too, had picked up some little
treasure and a vast quantity of rumor to compensate for his lost optic
and bitter experience. But the partners had little to show for their
sufferings and expenditures but rumors and hopes.

Pedrarias in disgust withdrew from the expedition for a price, which,
with the money necessary to send out a second expedition, was furnished
through Luque by the Licentiate Espinosa. Abou