Great was the dismay occasioned by the return of Almagro and his
followers, in the little community of Panama; for the letter,
surreptitiously conveyed in the ball of cotton, fell into the
hands for which it was intended, and the contents soon got abroad
with the usual quantity of exaggeration. The haggard and
dejected mien of the adventurers, of itself, told a tale
sufficiently disheartening, and it was soon generally believed
that the few ill-fated survivors of the expedition were detained
against their will by Pizarro, to end their days with their
disappointed leader on his desolate island.
Pedro de los Rios, the governor, was so much incensed at the
result of the expedition, and the waste of life it had occasioned
to the colony, that he turned a deaf ear to all the applications
of Luque and Almagro for further countenance in the affair; he
derided their sanguine anticipations of the future, and finally
resolved to send an officer to the isle of Gallo, with orders to
bring back every Spaniard whom he should find still living in
that dreary abode. Two vessels were immediately despatched for
the purpose, and placed under charge of a cavalier named Tafur, a
native of Cordova.
Meanwhile Pizarro and his followers were experiencing all the
miseries which might have been expected from the character of the
barren spot on which they were imprisoned. They were, indeed,
relieved from all apprehensions of the natives, since these had
quitted the island on its occupation by the white men; but they
had to endure the pains of hunger even in a greater degree than
they had formerly experienced in the wild woods of the
neighbouring continent.
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