After This Four Spaniards Landed And Called The Indians To Come Back,
Which They Now Did Very Quietly, Leaving Their Arms Behind Them; And They
Bartered Three Gold Plates, Saying They Had No More With Them, As They Had
Not Come Prepared For Trade But For War.
The only object of the admiral in this voyage being to discover the
country, and to procure samples of
Its productions, he proceeded without
farther delay to Catiba, and cast anchor in the mouth of a great river.
The people of the country were seen to gather, calling one another
together with horns and drums, and they afterwards sent two men in a canoe
towards the ships; who, after some conversation with the Indians who had
been taken at Cariari, came on board the admiral without any signs of
apprehension, and by the advice of the Cariari Indians gave the admiral
two gold plates which they wore about their necks, for which he gave them
some baubles in return. When these went on shore, there came another with
three men, wearing gold plates at their necks, who parted with them as the
others had done. Amity being thus settled, our men went on shore, where
they found numbers of people along with their king, who differed in
nothing from the rest, except that he was covered with one large leaf of a
tree to defend him from the rain which then fell in torrents. To give his
subjects a good example, he bartered away his gold plate, and bade them
exchange theirs with our men, so that they got nineteen in all of pure
gold. This was the first place in the Indies where our people had seen any
sign of building, as they here found a great mass of wall or masonry that
seemed to be composed of stone and lime, and the admiral ordered a piece
of it to be brought away as a memorial or specimen. From thence we sailed
eastwards to Cobravo, the people of which place dwell near the rivers of
that coast; and because none of the natives came down to the strand, and
the wind blew fresh, he held on his course to five towns of great trade,
among which was Veragua, where the Indians said the gold was gathered and
the plates manufactured.
The next day he came to a town called Cubiga, where the Indians of Cariari
said that the trading country ended; this began at Carabora and extended
to Cubiga for 50 leagues along the coast. Without making any stay here,
the admiral proceeded on till he put into Porto Bello, to which he gave
that name because it is large, well peopled, and encompassed by a finely
cultivated country. He entered this place on the 2d of November, passing
between two small islands within which ships may lie close to the shore,
and can turn it out if they have occasion. The country about that harbour
and higher up is by no means rough, but cultivated and full of houses a
stone throw or a bow-shot only from each other, and forms the finest
landscape that can be imagined.
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