one could ever find his way back to the gold country ten days inland
from Darien. Suffering and misfortune were surely telling on the
Admiral's mind, else he would never have written this childish note:
"None of them [the crew] could explain whither I went nor whence I came;
they did not know the way to return thither."

But all the time his men grumbled, and could not understand why they
were starting for Spain on crazy, crumbling ships, when San Domingo lay
so much nearer. Every day they murmured louder, till at last the Admiral
foolishly humored them by heading due north; the result was that he
turned too soon and found himself in a new current he had never met
before. This current carried them past Hispaniola westward again to
those same "Gardens of the Queen." The series of storms that here
overtook the two battered little ships were almost as bad as those that
met them on their last approach to Hispaniola. Anchors were lost and the
men kept the ships from sinking only by the constant use of "three pumps
and all their pots and kettles." By the 23d of June they had drifted
over to Jamaica. The crews were worn out by their hard work to keep
afloat. It seemed as if human endurance could stand no more. Many were
badly bruised from being dashed down on the decks like bits of wood
before the gales; they had had no dry clothing on for days; their hearts
were faint, their stomachs fainter, for they had had nothing to eat and
drink for some time but black wormy bread and vinegar. How, we ask
ourselves as we sit in our comfortable, solid houses, did they endure
it? And yet there was even worse to come!

The Admiral saw that even "three pumps and all their pots and kettles"
could not keep the water bailed out of the leaky boats. The only thing
he could do was to run his ships aground. The first harbor he tried was
so barren on every side that starvation stared them in the face; so they