Politics had bothered Patterson at the outset by arraying the English against the Scotch. Now religion added to the dissension. The church and the kirk factions--or the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians--fell afoul of each other. The kirk carried the executive council and Patterson, the only man who knew anything about the expedition, was permitted to accompany it only as an ordinary settler. Graft stepped in and though the colonists paid for six months’ provisions they discovered when far out at sea that they had but enough for two. Moreover nobody on the ships knew where they were going to settle, for they sailed under sealed orders. When these were opened and the tidings spread that Panama and not the East Indies was the destination, there was renewed distrust and disaffection. [Illustration: ROAD FROM PANAMA TO LA BOCA] The story of this luckless enterprise is short and dismal. On the voyage out forty-four of the adventurers died, and after landing the deaths continued with melancholy regularity. They were spared trouble with the Indians who, on learning that they were no friends to the Spaniards, welcomed them warmly, and urged them to join in driving the Spaniards from the land. But illness held the 900 colonists gripped, and malaria, the ruling pest of those tropical shores, is not wont to stimulate a militant spirit. They had settled on the Atlantic coast in the Darien region, as far from the rich traffic of the East Indies as though they were in their old Caledonian homes. Curiously enough they made no effort to get across to the Pacific, whence only could trade be conducted, but perhaps that was as well, for the Spaniards though much broken by the recent invasion of the buccaneers would have resisted such an advance to their utmost. [Illustration: COPYRIGHT. 1913, BY F. E. WRIGHT OLD FRENCH CANAL AT MOUNT HOPE Our engineers abandoned the French canal except as a docking place for vessels and a waterway for carrying material to the foot of Gatun locks.] So the unhappy colonists of New Caledonia found themselves on a miasmatic bit of land, remote from anything like civilization, with no sign of trade to engage their activities, an avowed enemy at their back and surrounded by Indians, the price of whose friendship was a declaration of war upon the Spaniards. To make matters worse, the King issued a proclamation prohibiting all governors of English colonies in the West Indies from giving them aid or comfort, denouncing them as outlaws. [Illustration: _Photo by Underwood & Underwood_ THE CITY PARK OF COLON]