The first thing to
be done was to find good water and to minister to the sick. For this
purpose there landed, on May 1st, Don Pedro Fages, Don Miguel Costanso,
and Don Jorge Estorace, with twenty-five men-soldiers, sailors, etc.,
all who were able to do duty, and, proceeding up the shore, found, by
direction of some Indians, a river of good mountain water at a distance
of three leagues to the northeast. Moving their ships as near as they
could, they prepared on the beach a camp, which they surrounded with a
parapet of earth and fascines, and mounted two cannon. Within they made
two large hospital tents from the sails and awnings of the ships, and
set up the tents of the officers and priests. Then they transferred the
sick. The labor was immense, for all were sick, and the list of those
able to perform duty daily grew smaller. The difficulties of their
situation were very great. Nearly all the medicines and food had been
consumed during the long voyage, and Don Pedro Prat, the surgeon,
himself sick with scurvy, sought in the fields with a thousand anxieties
some healing herbs, of which he himself was in as sore need as the
others.
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