Learning that opinion in the colony was divided as to the authority that should rule there, Colmenares agreed to remain and share his arms and supplies with the colonists, provided they would receive Nicuesa as their leader. This proposition having been acceded to (for the liberality of Colmenares had gained him universal favor), he and two others were deputed to go in search of the lost leader, who, with seven vessels and five hundred men, had disappeared, months before, and left no sign by which others could follow him. It was known that he had taken part with Ojeda in an attack upon the Indians at Cartagena, after which he had set sail for his allotted territory to the westward of Urabá. Since then nothing whatever had been heard from Nicuesa, but the search of Colmenares disclosed the details of a terrible narrative of suffering and fatal disasters, almost without a parallel in the annals of exploration. In short, at the time Colmenares set out from Antigua, only sixty men survived of the five hundred who had sailed from Spain with Nicuesa, and but one brigantine was left of his fleet. The unfortunate explorer was finally found at a port on the north coast of the isthmus named Nombre de Dios, where he and the remnant of his band were existing in a state of utter despondency, unable to get away, and despairing of assistance from any quarter. This port had been discovered and named by Nicuesa himself, who, on reaching it when worn by fatigue and exhausted by hunger, had exclaimed: "En nombre de Dios--in the name of God--let us rest here!" There he and his companions gave up their battle against the elements and hostile savages, and in the apathy of despair awaited the end. From this situation they were rescued by the coming of Colmenares, who snatched them from the very jaws of death.