Chief Towns of this Province.
The chief Towns of this Province, are 1. A small Town call’d De la Hacha, which gives Denomination to the said Province, having no convenient Haven, but otherwise seated in a Soil very rich and fertile, not onely of all sorts of Fruits and Plants, especially such as are brought from Spain, but likewise in many Mines of Gold, Gems of a large size and great value, and many excellent Salt-Wiches, as they call them; It is eight Leagues distant from Salamanca aforesaid, and eighteen from Cape Villa, the most Westerly Point or Foreland of the Bay of Venezuela; and with the rest had the hap to be surpris’d and pillag’d by the English with Sir Francis Drake in the Year 1595. who refus’d twenty four thousand Ducats, which the Governor proffer’d him for the Pearls he had taken.
2. Rancheria, six Leagues Eastward of La Hacha, inhabited chiefly by Pearl-Fishers, or such as get their Living for the most part by Fishing for Pearl, which was wont to be good on these Coasts.
3. Tapia, five Leagues from La Hacha, and considerable, for that the adjacent Parts were laid waste by the English, to revenge the perfidiousness of the Governor of Salamanca, refusing to pay the four thousand Ducats he had promis’d, upon Condition of their sparing the Town.
Abibeca the last King of this Province.
The last King of those that Govern’d in any of these Provinces of Terra Firma, was Abibeca, who could not be won to come down from his Palace, which he had on the top of a Tree, till a Spanish Officer, one Francisco de Vanquez began to lay an Ax to the Root thereof.
After Didaco Niquesa, Alphonso Oreda, and Anciso, had made very large Discoveries in these Provinces, Valboa was the first that discover’d the Way to the South-Sea.
CHAP. III.
New Granada.
First Discovery of New Granada.