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50 his money and more in equipping a larger fleet, and just as he was getting into his boat, he was arrested for debt. After ten days' delay a friend advanced the money, and Nicuesa set sail with two large ships, a caravel, and two brigantines, carrying a force of six hundred and fifty men.

Ojeda, in the meanwhile, had reached the harbor where the present city of Cartagena was founded in 1531. In spite of the warning of his second in command, old Juan de la Cosa, that the Indians hereabouts were hard fighters and used poisoned arrows, Ojeda landed with seventy men, and attacked one of their towns. The Indians fled, Ojeda allowed his men to scatter in pursuit, and the Indians, suddenly rallying, killed with their darts and poisoned arrows, every Spaniard of the party but Ojeda and one follower. Ojeda's great strength enabled him to break through, and his small size made it possible for him to hide well behind his shield. Indeed, when his other men found him, half dead with exhaustion but unwounded, there were the marks of three hundred arrows on it.

Nicuesa's fleet came sailing by, and he gladly lent his aid, particularly to avenge the death of Juan de la Cosa, who was one of the ambushed party and had been an old and beloved pilot of Columbus. The two governors fell on the Indians at night with four hundred men, and slaughtered a great number. Then Nicuesa sailed away to Veragua, and Ojeda entered the Gulf of Uraba and founded a town on his side of it, calling it San Sebastian.

But here there were only more poisoned arrows, and neither gold nor provisions. A ship load of food