These Animals,
Are Ordinarily From Twenty To Twenty-Five Feet Long, And Kill Either Men
Or Beasts When In The Water.
They come out of the water to lay their eggs,
which they bury in great numbers in the sand, leaving them to be hatched
by the heat of the sun.
These caymans have a strong resemblance to the
crocodiles of the river Nile. The Spaniards suffered much from hunger in
this voyage, as they could find nothing fit to eat along this coast except
the fruit of a tree called mangles, which grew in great abundance
everywhere along the shore. These trees are tall and straight, and have a
very hard wood; but as they grow on the shore, their roots being drenched
in sea water, their fruit is salt and bitter; yet necessity obliged the
Spaniards to subsist on them, along with such fish as they could find,
particularly crabs; as on the whole of that coast no maize was grown by
the natives. From the currents along this coast, which always set strongly
to the north, they were obliged to make their way by dint of constant
rowing; always harassed by the Indians, who assailed them with loud cries,
calling them banished men, and _hairy faces_, who were formed from the
spray of the sea, and wandered about without cultivating the earth, like
outcasts and vagabonds.
Having lost several of his men through famine and by the incessant attacks
of the Indians, it was agreed that Almagro should return to Panama for
recruits and provisions. Having procured twenty-four, they advanced with
these and the remains of their original force to a country named
_Catamez_[4], considerably beyond the river of St Juan, a tolerably
peopled country, in which they found plenty of provisions. The Indians of
this part of the coast, who were still hostile, were observed to have
certain ornaments of gold, resembling nails, inserted into holes made for
that purpose in different parts of their faces. Almagro was sent back a
second time to Panama, to endeavour to procure a larger force, and Pizarro
retired in the mean time to the small island of _Gallo_ somewhat farther
to the north, near the shore of the _Barbacoas_, and not far from Cape
_Mangles_, where he and his people suffered extreme hardships from
scarcity of provisions, amounting almost to absolute famine.
On the return of Almagro to Panama for reinforcements, he found the
government in the hands of Pedro de los Rios, who opposed the design of
Almagro to raise recruits, because those with Pizarro had secretly
conveyed a petition to the governor, not to permit any more people to be
sent upon an enterprize of so much danger, and requesting their own recal.
The governor, therefore, sent an officer to the Isle of Gallo, with an
order for such as were so inclined to return to Panama, which was eagerly
embraced by the greatest part of the soldiers of Pizarro, twelve only
remaining along with him.
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