Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/57

Rh day, so that the remnant, which, as already mentioned, met D'Ortal's men at the seashore, formed only a little band of haggard sufferers. Their accounts showed that D'Ortal had abandoned the Orinoco in order to approach Meta overland from the north, from the Gulf of Cariaco. The conflicts of which the post at Paria was the occasion were renewed this time about the coast-land between Cumaná and the Rio Neveri. Three parties were jealously keeping watch upon one another, and, wherever it was possible, barring one another from the interior. Sedeño had at first united with D'Ortal, and then separated from him. Opposed to both were the "men of Cubagua," whose chief interest was to hold the coast for the preservation of their own existence, and for the prosecution of the traffic in men.

The expedition to the south, begun by D'Ortal in 1535, entirely miscarried. He tried to reach Meta, first by single reconnaissances, and then in a general campaign. But his men rose against him on the Orinoco, which he possibly struck below the Rio Apure. A part of them wandered away, and we shall find them again later on in Federmann's following. The rest went back to the coast, where they delivered their commander up to justice. He remained a prisoner sixteen months, although his only crime was misfortune; and when he was released he had lost all desire for further campaigns, and "determined to marry." "And as his purpose was a good one," Oviedo says, "God gave him a good wife, a respectable and virtuous widow of suitable