On the return voyage the brigantine encountered a gale near the entrance of the river and was driven to the islands of Zorobaro, a short distance from the coast. There they remained for seventy-two days, exposed to incessant rains, three of their number being killed by lightning. Such was the blackness of the storm that during all this time they did not see four hours of sunshine. The captain of the vessel went ashore on the mainland to obtain provisions, but after eight days' search midst forest, swamp, and mountain, during which time he subsisted on snails and berries, he returned empty-handed. Finally the men made their way to the encampment of Gutierrez, who, being determined at all hazard to people his territory, immediately sent the ship back to Nombre de Dios for more recruits, supplying funds to the amount of fifteen hundred castellanos. The number of the colonists was thereby increased to eighty men. Thus reënforced he began the exploration of his province. With four canoes he ascended the Rio Surre, and after making a distance of about ten leagues, landed at an Indian village to which he gave the name of San Francisco in honor of the saint on whose natal day the spot was reached. Here the party was met by certain caciques, who brought presents of fruit but no gold. The governor received them kindly, informing them through an interpreter that the strangers had in their possession a secret which was of the utmost value; that they had come a great distance, and some of them for no other purpose than to reveal it. In return for this the Christians must have gold. [Sidenote: GUTIERREZ PREACHES CHRIST.] The chiefs were then invited to a feast, the viands consisting of fowl and salt pork; but they had little relish for such food, and merely tasting it handed it to their attendants to be cast to the dogs. After the meal came an exhortation in which, as Benzoni relates, Gutierrez thus harangued his guests: "My very dear friends and brothers, I am come hither to free you from the chains of idolatry, by which through the influences of your evil spirits you have until now been bound. I am come to teach you the way to heaven, whence Jesus Christ, the son of God, descended to save you. With me I have brought holy men to teach you this faith, which to accept, and implicitly to obey our sovereign emperor Charles V., king of Spain and monarch of the world, and us his representatives, comprises your whole duty." To these words the chieftains bowed their heads, but without making answer, neither assenting to nor rejecting the munificent and disinterested offer of the Christians, who for a little yellow earthly metal gave in return the ineffable joys of heaven. [Sidenote: GUTIERREZ ROBS AND TORTURES.]