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Ojeda started in the beginning of January 1494, and marched southwards through dense forests until, having crossed a mountain range, he came down into a beautiful and fertile valley, where they were hospitably received by the natives.
The stranger paused, and his voice seemed broken by emotion; at the same time, Father Jose, whose sympathizing heart yearned toward the departing banners, cried in poignant accents, "Farewell, ye gallant cavaliers and Christian soldiers! Farewell, thou, Juries de Balboa! thou, Alonzo de Ojeda! and thou, most venerable Las Casas! farewell, and may Heaven prosper still the seed ye left behind!"
His small force was augmented by some men despatched by Bartholomew Columbus on receipt of an urgent message; and in command of this force Ojeda sallied forth against the natives and attacked them furiously on horse and on foot, killing a great part of them, taking others prisoner, and putting the rest to flight. This was the beginning of the end of the island resistance.
The first important expedition along the northern coast of South America was that of Ojeda in 1499-1500, in company with Juan de la Cosa, next to Columbus the most expert navigator and pilot of the age, and Vespucci, perhaps his equal in nautical science as he was his superior in other departments of polite learning.
Two years previously, Rodrigo de Bastidas and Alanso do Ojeda, accompanied by Amerigo Vespucci, had discovered the whole coast of the main land, from the Gulf of Maracaybo as far as the Puerto de Retreto.
Columbus had made three voyages as admiral and viceroy, five years before Americas Vespusius had made one as a geographer, under the command of admiral Ojeda; but the latter, writing to his friends at Florence, that he had discovered a new world, they believed him on his word, and the citizens of Florence decreed, that a grand illumination should be made before the door of his house every three years, on the feast of All Saints.
Bernardino de Escalente, in his work Diálogos del arte militar, printed in Seville in 1583, says that the Captain Ojeda, of the galley Guzmana, recaptured the Capitana of Malta; and that, in recognition thereof, "the Religion" pensioned him for life. Ojeda, it is to be presumed, was under the orders of the Marquis of Santa Cruz during the battle.
In it he was given a high position, something like that of District Judge. With this reënforcement, Ojeda and La Cosa equipped two small ships and two brigantines containing three hundred men and twelve horses.
Further reports informed him that they were commanded by Alonzo de Ojeda, the same hot-headed and bold-hearted cavalier who had distinguished himself on various occasions in the previous voyages of discovery, and particularly in the capture of the cacique Caonabo.
Hernando Cortez was to have gone along also, but fortunately for him, an inflammation of the knee kept him at home. Ojeda was in such a hurry to get to El Dorado for it was in the territory to the southward of his allotment, that the mysterious city was supposed to be located that he did not stop at Jamaica to take off Esquivel's head a good thing for him, as it subsequently turned out.
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