Soon after this action, Hernando de Soto arrived from Nicaragua with a considerable reinforcement of foot and horse.  But finding it difficult to subdue the islanders effectually, as they kept their canoes concealed among the mangrove trees which grow in the water, Pizarro resolved to return to Tumbez; more especially as the air of Puna is unwholesome from its extreme heat, and the marshy nature of its shores.  For this reason he divided all the gold which had been collected in the island, and abandoned the place.  In this island of Puna, the Spaniards found above six hundred prisoners, men and women, belonging to the district of Tumbez, among whom was one of the principal nobles of that place.  On the 16th May 1532, Pizarro set all these people at liberty, and supplied them with barks or floats to carry them home to Tumbez; sending likewise in one of these barks along with the liberated Indians, three Spaniards to announce his own speedy arrival.  The Indians of Tumbez repaid this great favour with the blackest ingratitude, as immediately on their arrival, they sacrificed these three Spaniards to their abominable idols.  Hernando de Soto made a narrow escape from meeting with the same fate:  He was embarked on one of these floats, with a single servant, along with some of the Indians, and had already entered the river of Tumbez, when he was seen by Diego de Aguero and Roderick Lozan, who had already landed, and who made him stop the float and land beside them; otherwise, if he had been carried up to Tumbez, he would certainly have been put to death.

From the foregoing treachery of the inhabitants of Tumbez, it may readily be supposed that they were by no means disposed to furnish barks for the disembarkation of the Spanish troops and horses; so that on the first evening, only the Governor Don Francisco Pizarro, with his brothers Ferdinand and Juan, the bishop Don Vincente de Valverde, captain de Soto, and the other two Spaniards already mentioned, Aguero and Lozan, were able to land.  These gentlemen had to pass the whole night on horseback entirely wet, as the sea was very rough, and they had no Indians to guide their bark, which the Spaniards did not know how to manage, so that it overset while they were endeavouring to land.  In the morning, Ferdinand Pizarro remained on the shore to direct the landing of the troops, while the governor and the others who had landed rode more than two leagues into the country without being able to find a single Indian, as all the natives had armed themselves and retired to the small hills in the neighbourhood.  On returning towards the coast, he met the captains Mina and Salcedo, who had rode to meet him with several of the cavalry which had disembarked.  He returned with them to Tumbez, where he encamped with all the troops he was able to collect.