acted with them that they and their families were
baptized, Careta taking in baptism the name of Fernando, and Comogre that
of Carlos. Balboa then returned to the Darien, rich in the spoils of
Ponca, rich in the presents of his friends, and still richer in the
golden hopes which the future offered him.

At this time, and after an absence of six months, arrived the magistrate
Valdivia, with a vessel laden with different stores; he brought likewise
great promises of abundant aid in provisions and men. The succors,
however, which Valdivia brought were speedily consumed; their seed,
destroyed in the ground by storms and floods, promised them no resource
whatever; and they returned to their usual necessitous state. Balboa then
consented to their extending their incursions to more distant lands, as
they had already wasted and ruined the immediate environs of Antigua,
and he sent Valdivia to Spain to apprise the admiral of the clew he
had gained to the South Sea, and the reported wealth of those regions.
Valdivia took with him fifteen thousand pieces of gold, which belonged
to the King as his fifth, and a charge to petition for the thousand men
which were necessary to the expedition, and to prevent the adventurers
being compelled to exterminate the tribes and caciques of the Indians,
for otherwise, being so few in number, they would be driven, to avoid
their own destruction, to the slaughter of all who would not submit
themselves. This commission, however, together with the rich presents in
gold sent by the chiefs of the Darien to their friends, and Valdivia,
with all his crew, were no doubt swallowed by the sea, as no trace of
them was ever afterward discovered.

To the departure of Valdivia succeeded immediately the expedition to the
gulf and the examination of the lands situated at its inner extremity.
There lay the dominions of Dabaibe, of whose riches prodigious reports
were spread, especially of an idol and a temple represented to be made
entirely of gold. There Cemaco, and the Indians who followed him, had
taken refuge, and had never lost either the wish or the hope of driving
away the invading horde who had usurped their country.

Balboa marched against them by land with sixty men, and Colmenares went
by water with as many more to take the enemy by surprise. The former did
not find Cemaco; but Colmenares was more fortunate, for he surprised the
savages in Tichiri. He commanded the general to be shot with arrows in
hi