A boat's crew of eleven Spaniards, who had proceeded some distance up the river, were attacked by savages in canoes, and only one man escaped to carry to the settlement the news of the massacre of his companions.
SETTLEMENT ABANDONED.
The admiral, with three of the caravels, was in the offing, awaiting a wind favourable for his departure, but the dry weather had made the river so shallow that it was impossible for the caravel left with the settlers to cross the bar, and as they had no boat strong enough to weather the surf, it seemed impossible for them to carry to him tidings of their condition.

They were in despair; for if they were left, they knew that they were left to perish.

The admiral, on his part, had become uneasy, not knowing that their failure to communicate with him was owing to the fact that their only seaworthy boat had been destroyed by the Indians.

His own boats were small and scarcely weathertight.

But some of Quibia's family who had been taken on board the squadron as prisoners, had made their escape by swimming to the shore, three miles off; and this feat encouraged a bold pilot of Seville, named Ledesma, who was on board the admiral's caravel, to attempt a similar exploit.