To return to Nicuesa:--On leaving _Carthagena_, he continued his voyage to the coast assigned to him as a government. The squadron arrived in due course at _Veragua_, but during a storm the vessel of Nicuesa became separated from her companions. Being stranded in a river, and his ship being in danger of falling to pieces, Nicuesa and his companions had to save themselves by passing to the shore by means of a rope. No sooner had they reached it than the _caravel_ broke up, their provisions and clothing being carried off by the waters. Fortunately their boat was cast ashore, and in it four seamen put to sea, keeping abreast of the main body, which had to find its way along the shore, and ferrying them across the rivers and bays in their way. The sufferings of Nicuesa and his men were extreme, and their food consisted only of such herbs and roots and shellfish as they could gather. They were, however, proceeding in a wrong direction. The boat’s crew were convinced of this fact, though they despaired of being able to convince Nicuesa; and so one night they took the law into their own hands and departed in the boat, leaving their commander and his party on an island. As they had anticipated, they ere long fell in with the other vessels, who had taken refuge in the river of _Belen_, and a boat was forthwith sent to rescue the forlorn party. Nicuesa and his famished companions now rejoined his people at _Belen_, where, of the gallant band of seven hundred men who had sailed with him from _San Domingo_, he now found but three hundred half-starved survivors. His first care was to take measures for their relief; but, as will be remembered from the experience of Columbus and his brother, the Indians of this coast were by no means pleasant to deal with. Many of the Spanish foragers were slain, and those who escaped this fate were so enfeebled that it was with the utmost difficulty they could carry their provisions home.