United States or Slovenia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Nicuesa was therefore obliged to regain the brigantine, and there remained with him only seventeen of his sixty companions. It was the calends of March in the year 1511 when Nicuesa set sail, intending to return to Hispaniola and there complain of the usurpation of Vasco Nuñez and the violent treatment offered the judge, Enciso.
He spoke the truth, for at the time of his departure, Enciso had already more than half completed his preparations. His companions, however, who considered they had been duped, did not believe in the sincerity of his affirmations about Enciso, and a number of them secretly planned to seize two brigantines belonging to Hojeda, and to return to Hispaniola.
Men who went on board his brigantine told him that Hojeda had returned to Hispaniola, but thinking they lied, Enciso ordered them by virtue of his authority as a judge, to return to the country whence they had come.
Other people claim that the bite is mortal, but may be cured by being washed immediately with sea-water; Enciso also spoke of the efficacy of this remedy. Cauterisation is also used, as it is employed for wounds caused by native poisoned arrows. Enciso had had experience in Caribana, where many of his men had been wounded.
Enciso was in a quandary what to do, but Balboa had been on that coast before, on his first voyage out from Spain, and knew of an Indian village on the Darien River where they might find food and shelter. He advised Enciso to go thither, and a journey was made overland, among hostile Indians and with little food. The adventurers were half-starved when at length they reached their goal.
This miracle struck terror into the Comendador's enemies, and they recognised that the zemes of the Virgin was more powerful than their own. The consequence of this event was, that when the news spread that Christians had landed in Cuba, the Comendador's neighbours, who were his bitter enemies, and had often made war upon him, sent to Enciso asking for priests to baptise them.
The fact of his being chosen by Hojeda to act as governor was not enough. He succeeded in impeding Enciso in his functions, and the colonists of Uraba chose some of their own men to administer the colony; but dissension was not long in dividing them, especially when their leader Hojeda did not return.
Those who have been bitten confirmed this fact, and the judge Enciso who had been expelled, when asked by me concerning the danger of such bites, told me that one night, when he slept uncovered because of the heat, he had been bitten by one of these animals on the heel, but that the wound had not been more dangerous than one made by any other non-poisonous creature.
Enciso refused and left; nor are there wanting people who whispered that God and His Saints had themselves shaped events to punish Enciso for Nicuesa's expulsion, which he had counselled.
Whether before or afterwards I am not certain, but in any event it was shortly after the expulsion of Nicuesa that quarrels broke out between the judge, Enciso, and Vasco Nuñez, each being supported by his own partisans. Enciso was seized, thrown into prison, and all his goods sold at auction.
Word Of The Day