A SETTLEMENT FORMED.
In this neighbourhood there was a powerful cacique, named Quibia, whose territory contained much gold, and with whom, therefore, the Spaniards were anxious to treat. But he outwitted them. Offering to supply them with guides to conduct them to his gold mines, he really sent them, not to his own mines, but to those of a rival cacique, of Urira. Here, however, they succeeded in acquiring, by barter and by actual discovery, large quantities of the precious metal, which seemed to be so abundant, that the admiral made sure that he had come to the very Aurea Chersonesus from which Solomon had obtained the gold for the temple at Jerusalem. He had seen more signs of gold here in two days, he said, than he had seen in St. Domingo in four years. His first step was to form a settlement to provide a depot for the gold which might be collected. A convenient site was found near the mouth of the river Bethlehem, and by the end of March the Adelantado had built a village of huts, in which it was proposed that he should remain, with about eighty followers, while Columbus returned to Spain for supplies.