.

Nicuesa ran along the shore to search for them, got himself embayed in
the mouth of a small river, swollen by recent rains, and upon the
sudden subsidence of the water coincident with the ebb of the tide, his
ship took ground, fell over on her bilge and was completely wrecked.
The men on board barely escaped with their lives to the shore. They
had saved nothing except what they wore, the few arms they carried and
one small boat.

Putting Diego de Ribero and three sailors in the boat and directing
them to coast along the shore, Nicuesa with the rest struggled westward
in search of the two brigantines and the other three ships. They
toiled through interminable forests and morasses for several days,
living on what they could pick up in the way of roots and grasses,
without discovering any signs of the missing vessels. Coming to an arm
of the sea, supposed to be Chiriqui Lagoon off Costa Rica, in the
course of their journeyings, they decided to cross it in a small boat
rather than make the long detour necessary to get to what they believed
to be the other side. They were ferried over to the opposite shore in
the boat, and to their dismay discovered that they were upon an almost
desert island.

It was too late and they were too tired, to go farther that night, so
they resolved to pass the night on the {22} island. In the morning
they were appalled to find that the little boat, with Ribero and the
three sailors, was gone. They were marooned on a desert island with
practically nothing to eat and nothing but brackish swamp water to
drink. The sailors they believed to have abandoned them. They gave
way to transports of despair. Some in their grief threw themselves
down and died forthwith. Others sought to prolong life by eating
herbs, roots and the like.

They were reduced to the condition of wild animals, when a sail
whitened the horizon, and presently the two brigantines dropped anchor
near the island. Ribero was no recreant. He had been convinced that
Nicuesa was going farther and farther from the ships with every step
that he took, and, unable to persuade him of that fact, he deliberately
took matters into his own hands and retraced his course. The event
justified his decision, for he soon found the brigantines and the other
ships. Olano does not seem to have bestirred himself very vigorously
to seek for Nicuesa, perhaps because he hoped to command himself; but
when Ribero made his report he at once mad