THE
C O M P A N I O N S OF COLUMBUS.
247
FORTUNES OF VALDIVIA AND HIS COMPANIONS. IT was in the year 1512 that Valdivia, the regidor of Darien, was sent to Hispaniola by Vasco Nuiiez de Balboa for reinforce足 ments and supplies for the colony.
He set sail in a caravel, and
pursued his voyage prosperously until he arrived in sight of the island of Jamaica.
Here he was encountered by one of the
violent hurricanes which sweep those latitudes, and driven on the shoals and sunken rocks called the Vipers, since infamous for many a shipwreck.
His vessel soon went to pieces, and Valdivia
and his crew, consisting of twenty men, escaped with difficulty in the boat, without having time to secure a supply either of water or provisions.
Having no sails, and their oars being scarcely fit
for use, they were driven about for thirteen days, at the mercy of the currents of those unknown seas.
During this time their
sufferings from hunger and thirst were indescribable.
Seven of
their number perished, and the rest were nearly famished when they were stranded on the eastern coast of Yucatan, in a province called Maya.
Here they were set upon by the natives, who
broke their boat in pieces, and carried them off captive to the cacique of the province, by whose orders they were mewed up in a kind of pen. At first their situation appeared tolerable enough, considering the horrors from which they had escaped.
They were closely