Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/199

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and two hundred foot soldiers, amongst whom were many crossbowmen and musketeers; he took four field pieces and artillery, and a great supply of ammunition and powder. I likewise had an armada of ships built, of which I sent Cristobal de Olid as captain, he having come with me to go to the North Coast, where I ordered
Cortes
named
Captain-
General
him to make a settlement on the Cape of Hibueras, which is sixty leagues from the Bay of Ascension, beyond what is called Yucatan, on the coast of the mainland towards Darien^[1]: for I have information that that country is very rich, and many pilots believe that a strait links that Bay with the other sea, and this is the one thing in the world which I most desire to discover, and which I think would render greatest service to Your Cæsarian Majesty. As these two captains were about to start, with all preparations for the march completed, I received a message from each of them, from Santistevan del Puerto which I had founded

↑ This coast was first reached by Rodrigo de Bastidas and Nicuesa in 1502; the survivors of the expedition of Nicuesa and Ojeda founded a town there which Encisa named Santa Maria Antigua, in honour of the Blessed Virgin venerated under that title in Seville; Vasco Nuñez de Balboa was Governor, and Pizarro, who later conquered Peru, was one of Ojeda's companions. The hardships endured by Ojeda and his men were beyond all human endurance, and the description of their sufferings from disease, famine, shipwreck, and rebellions within the colony, and fighting the Indians without, is one of the most harrowing tales of human misery and human courage anywhere to be read. Cortes was providentially prevented from joining this expedition by a swelling on his knee which laid him up. The pilot and cosmographer, Juan de la Cosa, was killed by a poisoned arrow. Ojeda himself survived, but died poor and obscure in San Domingo. Gomara (Hist. Gen.) says that he became a monk, but Las Casas who mentions his wish to be buried under the threshold of the Church of St. Francisco, so that all who entered might tread upon his grave as an act of expiation for his sins of pride, does not mention that he belonged to any religious order.

The end of Nicuesa was even more unfortunate, for he was driven from Darien by the rebellious colonists, and, putting to sea with a few followers in an unseaworthy vessel, poorly provisioned, was never seen again.

[1] This coast was first reached by Rodrigo de Bastidas and Nicuesa in 1502; the survivors of the expedition of Nicuesa and Ojeda founded a town there which Encisa named Santa Maria Antigua, in honour of the Blessed Virgin venerated under that title in Seville; Vasco Nuñez de Balboa was Governor, and Pizarro, who later conquered Peru, was one of Ojeda's companions. The hardships endured by Ojeda and his men were beyond all human endurance, and the description of their sufferings from disease, famine, shipwreck, and rebellions within the colony, and fighting the Indians without, is one of the most harrowing tales of human misery and human courage anywhere to be read. Cortes was providentially prevented from joining this expedition by a swelling on his knee which laid him up. The pilot and cosmographer, Juan de la Cosa, was killed by a poisoned arrow. Ojeda himself survived, but died poor and obscure in San Domingo. Gomara (Hist. Gen.) says that he became a monk, but Las Casas who mentions his wish to be buried under the threshold of the Church of St. Francisco, so that all who entered might tread upon his grave as an act of expiation for his sins of pride, does not mention that he belonged to any religious order.

The end of Nicuesa was even more unfortunate, for he was driven from Darien by the rebellious colonists, and, putting to sea with a few followers in an unseaworthy vessel, poorly provisioned, was never seen again.

[1]