us 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 Nunez 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 Nunez 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