Five leagues further on, in the same road to Popayan, is the great river of Santa Martha, where there are always balsas and canoes, so that it can be crossed without danger, and thus the Indian inhabitants go and come from one city to the other. The banks of this river were once very populous, but the people have been extirpated by time and by the war which they waged with the captain Belalcazar, who was the first to discover and conquer them. Although he was one cause of their rapid destruction, yet another cause of it was their evil custom and accursed vice of eating each other. The remains of these tribes and nations consist of a diminished race on both banks of the river, who are called Aguales, and who are subject to the city of Cali. There are, however, many Indians in the mountains on each side, who, on account of the difficulty in penetrating their country, and of the troubles in Peru, have not yet been subjugated. Concealed and isolated as they are, they have yet been seen by the invincible Spaniards, and defeated many times. They all go naked, and have the same customs as their neighbours.
After crossing the great river, which is fourteen leagues from the city of Popayan, there is a morass about a quarter of a league in extent, and beyond it the road is very good, until the river called Ovejas is reached. There is much risk to him who attempts to cross this river in the winter time, for it is very deep, and the ford is near its mouth, where it falls into the great river. Many Spaniards and Indians have been drowned here. On the other side of this river there is a smooth plain, six leagues in extent, and very good for travelling, and at the end of it a river called Piandomo is crossed. Its banks, and the whole of this plain, were once well peopled, but those whom the fury of the war has spared, have retired to a distance from the road, where they think they are safer. To the eastward is the province of Guambia, and many other chiefs and villages. Beyond the river of Piandomo, there is another called Plaza, the banks of which are well peopled, both at its sources, and all along its course. Then the great river is again crossed by a ford, and from this point to Popayan the whole country is covered with beautiful farms, such as in Spain we call alcarias or cortijos,[251] and here the Spaniards have their flocks. These plains are also sown with maize, and it is here that they have begun to sow wheat. The land will yield great quantities, for it is well suited to its growths. In other parts of this country they reap the maize in five or six months, so that they have two crops in the year. They, however, only sow it once in the year on this plain, and their harvest is in May and June; that of wheat in July and August, as in Spain. All these meadows and plains were once very populous, and subject to the lord whose name was Popayan, one of the principal chiefs in these provinces. Now there are few Indians, owing to the war with the Spaniards, and to their custom of eating each other, and also to the great famine, which was caused by their not sowing the crops, with the hope that, there being no food, the Spaniards would leave their country. There are many fruit trees, especially aguacates or pears, which are abundant and savoury. The rivers rising in the Cordillera of the Andes flow through these plains, and the water is very limpid and sweet. In some of them there are signs of gold.
The site of the city is on a high table land, in an excellent situation, being the healthiest and most temperate of any in the government of Popayan, and even in the greater part of the kingdom of Peru. Truly the climate is more like Spain than the Andes. There are large houses of straw in the city. This city of Popayan is the chief and head of all the cities I have described, except that of Uraba, which belongs to the government of Carthagena. All the rest are under Popayan, which contains a cathedral church, and, as this is the principal and most central city, the government is entitled Popayan. To the east is the long chain of the Andes; to the west are other mountains which overhang the South Sea, and on the other side are the plains which I have described. The city of Popayan was founded by the captain Don Sebastian de Belalcazar,[252] in the name of the Emperor Charles, our lord, by authority of the Adelantado Don Francisco Pizarro, governor of all Peru, for his Majesty, in the year of the Lord 1536.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Concerning the river of Santa Martha,[253] and of the things which are met with on its banks.
NOW that I have reached the city of Popayan, and described its site, neighbourhood, founding, and people, it seems well that I should give an account of the river which flows near it, and which is one of the two branches which form the great river of Santa Martha. Before treating of this river, however, I will relate what I find in the Scriptures concerning the four principal rivers mentioned there, which are, first, the Ganges, flowing through the East Indies; second, the Nile, separating Asia from Africa, and watering the land of Egypt; third and fourth, the Tigris and Euphrates, which encircle the two regions of Mesopotamia and Cappadocia. These are the four which are said, in the Holy Scriptures, to issue out of the earthly paradise. I also find that mention is made of three others, which are the river Indus, whence India takes its name; the river Danube, being the principal in Europe; and the river Tanais, dividing Europe from Asia. Of all these, the greatest is the Ganges, concerning which Ptolemy says, in his book of geography, that the narrowest part is eight thousand paces, and the broadest twenty thousand paces across. According to this, the broadest part of the Ganges is seven leagues across. This is the extreme breadth of the largest river in the world, that was known before the discovery of these Indies. But now they have found rivers of such strange bigness, that they appear more like gulfs of the sea, than rivers which flow through the land. This appears from what is stated by many of the Spaniards who went with the Adelantado Orellana. They declare that the river which flows from Peru into the North Sea (commonly called the Amazons or Marañon) is more than a thousand leagues long, and in some parts twenty-five broad; and the Rio de la Plata is said by many who have been there to be so broad that, in many places, the banks on either side are not visible from the centre of the stream, being more than eight leagues across. The river of Darien, too, is great, and that of Urapa is no smaller, and there are many others of great size in these Indies, amongst which is this river of Santa Martha.
The river of Santa Martha is formed by two branches. One of these, which flows by the city of Popayan, rises in the great Cordillera of the Andes, in some valleys formed by the mountains five or six leagues from the city. These valleys were well peopled in former times, and are so to this day, though not so thickly, by certain Indians whom they call Coconucos, and among these, near a village called Cotara, this river has its source, which, as I have before said, is one of the branches of the great and rich river of Santa Martha.
The sources of the two branches are forty leagues from each other, and the river is so large at the place where they unite, that it has a breadth of one league, while, where it enters into the North Sea, near the city of Santa Martha, it is seven leagues broad, and its force is so great that its waters enter into the waves at last to be converted into a part of the sea. Many ships have taken in good fresh water from it out at sea, for its force is so mighty that it passes for more than four leagues into the sea before it mingles with the salt water. It enters the sea by many mouths and openings. In the mountain of the Coconucos (which I have already said is the birth-place of one of the branches) it is like a little brook, but it flows on to the broad valley of Cali, receiving streams from mountains on both sides, so that, when it reaches the city of Cali, it is so great and powerful that to me it seemed to have as much water as the Guadalquivir at Seville. Lower down, when it reaches Buritica, near the city of Antiochia, having received many more streams, it is still larger. There are provinces and villages of Indians from the source of this river to the point where it enters the ocean, and such wealth of gold, both in mines and in the possession of the Indians, that it cannot be exaggerated, it being so great. The natives of these regions are not very intelligent, and they have so many languages that, in going amongst them, it was necessary to take many interpreters.
All the wealth of the province of Santa Martha, most of that of Carthagena, of Nueva Granada, and of the province of Popayan, is near this river; and, besides the country which has been discovered near its banks, there are rumours of populous districts between the two branches, which have yet to be explored. The Indians say that in these districts there is great store of riches, and that the Indians who are natives possess the mortal herb of Uraba. The Adelantado Don Pedro de Heredia passed by the bridge of Brenuco, where, the river flowing in great strength, the Indians had made a bridge with trees and strong creepers, after the fashion of the bridges I have described already. He went some days march by land, but returned, having few horses and Spaniards with him. The Adelantado Don Sebastian de Belalcazar also wished to send another captain by a route more to the eastward, which is less dangerous, called the valley of Aburra, to explore the country thoroughly between the two branches of this great river. But when he was on the road the enterprise was abandoned, in order to send the troops to the viceroy Blasco Nuñez Vela, at the time when he was at war with Gonzalo Pizarro and his followers.
Returning to the subject of this river of Santa Martha, I would observe that, where the two branches unite, a number of islands are formed, some of which are inhabited. Near the sea there are many very fierce alligators and other great fish, called manatee,[254] which are as large as a calf, and are born on the beaches and islands. They come out to browse when they can do so without danger, and presently return to their haunts. About one hundred and twenty leagues below the city of Antiochia, that of Mompox has been founded, within the jurisdiction of Carthagena, and here they call this river the Cauca. The length of the river from its source to the sea is more than four hundred leagues.