[Footnote 11: "Con ciento i diez Hombres salio de Panama, i fue
donde estaba el Capitan Picarro con otros cinquenta de los
primeros ciento; diez, que con el salieron, i de los setenta, que
el Capitan Almagro llevo, quando le fue a buscar, que los ciento
i treinta ia eran muertos. Xerez, Conq. del Peru, ap. Barcia,
tom. III. p. 180.]
Thus indifferently provided, the two captains, each in his own
vessel, again took their departure from Panama, under the
direction of Bartholomew Ruiz, a sagacious and resolute pilot,
well experienced in the navigation of the Southern Ocean. He was
a native of Moguer, in Andalusia, that little nursery of nautical
enterprise, which furnished so many seamen for the first voyages
of Columbus. Without touching at the intervening points of the
coast, which offered no attraction to the voyagers, they stood
farther out to sea, steering direct for the Rio de San Juan, the
utmost limit reached by Almagro. The season was better selected
than on the former occasion, and they were borne along by
favorable breezes to the place of their destination, which they
reached without accident in a few days. Entering the mouth of
the river, they saw the banks well lined with Indian habitations;
and Pizarro, disembarking, at the head of a party of soldiers,
succeeded in surprising a small village and carrying off a
considerable booty of gold ornaments found in the dwellings,
together with a few of the natives. *12
[Footnote 12: Ibid.
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