After Valdivia’s departure the colonists, driven to desperation by hunger, resolved to explore the outline of the gulf, of which the most remote extremity is about eighty miles distant from the entrance.  This extremity is called by the Spaniards Culata.[1]

[Note 1:  The southern end of the gulf still bears the name Culata del golfo.]

Vasco Nunez embarked with about one hundred men on board a brigantine and in some native barques dug out of tree trunks, called by the islanders of Hispaniola canoes, and by the people of Uraba, uru.  The river flows into the gulf at that place from the east and is ten times larger than the Darien.  Up this river the Spaniards sailed for a distance of thirty miles or a little more than nine leagues, and turning to the left, which is towards the south, they came upon a native village, whose cacique was called Dobaiba.  In Hispaniola their kings are called caciques and in Uraba, chebi, with the accent on the last vowel.  It was learned that Zemaco, cacique of Darien, who had been defeated by the Spaniards in open battle, had taken refuge with Dobaiba.  The latter, counselled, as it was thought, by Zemaco, fled, and thus evaded the Spanish attack.  The place was deserted, though a stock of bows and arrows, some pieces of furniture, nets, and several fishing boats were found there.  These districts being marshy and low are unsuitable both for agriculture and plantations of trees, so there are few food products, and the natives only procure these by trading what fish they have in excess of their wants with their neighbours.  Nevertheless seven thousand castellanos of gold were picked up in the deserted houses, besides several canoes, about a hundred bows and parcels of arrows, all the furniture, and two native barques or uru.

In the night-time bats swarmed from the marshes formed by this river, and these animals, which are as big as pigeons, tormented the Spaniards with their painful bites.  Those who have been bitten confirmed this fact, and the judge Enciso who had been expelled, when asked by me concerning the danger of such bites, told me that one night, when he slept uncovered because of the heat, he had been bitten by one of these animals on the heel, but that the wound had not been more dangerous than one made by any other non-poisonous creature.  Other people claim that the bite is mortal, but may be cured by being washed immediately with sea-water; Enciso also spoke of the efficacy of this remedy.  Cauterisation is also used, as it is employed for wounds caused by native poisoned arrows.  Enciso had had experience in Caribana, where many of his men had been wounded.  The Spaniards returned to the Gulf of Uraba only partly satisfied, for they had brought back no provisions.  Such a terrible tempest overtook them in that immense gulf on their return voyage, that they were obliged to throw everything they had stolen from those wretched fishermen into the sea.  Moreover the uru, that is to say, the barques, were lost and with them some of the men on board.