[Note 5: Juan Diaz de Solis, a native of Sebixa, sailed with Vincente Yañez Pinzon in 1508, when the mouths of the Amazon were discovered. In 1512, the King appointed him and Giovanni Vespucci his cartographers.]
[Note 6: Governor in 1508 of Porto Rico and later, in 1512, the discoverer of Florida, of which country he was appointed Adelantado by King Ferdinand. He died in Cuba in 1521, from the effects of a wound received during his expedition to Florida in that year.]
[Note 7: The scene of this massacre was between Maldonado and Montevideo.]
Juan Ponce likewise endured a severe check from the cannibals on the island of Guadaloupe, which is the most important of all the Carib islands. When these people beheld the Spanish ships, they concealed themselves in a place from which they could spy upon all the movements of the people who might land. Ponce had sent some women ashore to wash some shirts and linen, and also some foot-soldiers to obtain fresh water, for he had not seen land after leaving the island of Ferro in the Canaries until he reached Guadaloupe, a distance of four thousand two hundred miles. There is no island in the ocean throughout the entire distance. The cannibals suddenly attacked and captured the women, dispersing the men, a small number of whom managed to escape. Ponce did not venture to attack the Caribs, fearing the poisoned arrows which these barbarous man-eaters use with fatal effect.
This excellent Ponce who, as long as he was in a place of safety, had boasted that he would exterminate the Caribs, was constrained to leave his washerwomen and retreat before the islanders. What he has since done, and what discoveries he may have made, I have not yet learned. Thus Solis lost his life, and Ponce his honour, in carrying out their expeditions.
Another who failed miserably in his undertaking the same year is Juan Ayora de Cordova, a nobleman sent out as judge, as we have elsewhere said, and who was keener about accumulating a fortune than he was about administering his office, and deserving praise. Under some pretext or other he robbed several caciques and extorted gold from them, in defiance of all justice. It is related that he treated them so cruelly that, from being friends, they became implacable enemies, and driven to extremities they massacred the Spaniards, sometimes openly and sometimes by setting traps for them. In places where formerly trade relations were normal and the caciques friendly, it became necessary to fight. When, so it is said, he had amassed a large amount of gold by such means, Ayora fled on board a ship he suddenly procured, and it is not known at this present writing where he landed. There are not wanting people who believe that the governor himself, Pedro Arias, closed his eyes to this secret flight; for Juan Ayora is a brother of Gonzales Ayora, the royal historiographer, who is a learned man, an excellent captain, and so intimate with the governor that he and Pedro Arias may be cited amongst the rare pairs of friends known to us. I am in very close relations with both of them, and may they both pardon me; but amidst all the troubles in the colonies, nothing has displeased me so much as the cupidity of this Juan Ayora, which troubled the public peace of the colonies and alienated the caciques.
Let us now come to the tragic adventures of Gonzales de Badajoz and his companions. In the beginning fortune smiled upon them, but sufficiently sad changes very quickly followed. Gonzales left Darien with forty soldiers in the month of March of the preceding year, 1515, and marched straight to the west, stopping nowhere until he reached the region the Spaniards have named Gracias á Dios, as we have above stated. This place is about a hundred and eighty miles, or sixty leagues from Darien. They passed several days there doing nothing, because the commander was unable either by invitations, bribes, or threats to induce the cacique to approach him, although he desired very much to accomplish this. While camping here he was joined by fifteen adventurers from Darien, under the leadership of Luis Mercado who had left that colony in May, wishing to join Gonzales in exploring the interior. As soon as the two groups met, they decided to cross the southern mountain chain and take possession of the South Sea already discovered. The most extraordinary thing of all is, that on a continent of such length and breadth, the distance to the South Sea was not more than fifty-one miles, or seventeen leagues. In Spain people never count by miles; the land league equals three miles, and the marine league four miles. When they reached the summit of the mountain chain, which is the watershed, they found there a cacique called Javana. Both the country and its ruler bear the name of Coiba, as we have already stated is the case, at Careta. As the country of Javana is the richest of all in gold, it is called Coiba Rica. And in fact, wherever one digs, whether on dry land or in the river-beds, the sand is found to contain gold. The cacique Javana fled when the Spaniards approached, nor was it possible to overtake him. They then set to work to ravage the neighbourhood of his town, but found very little gold, for the cacique had taken with him in his flight everything he possessed. They found, however, some slaves who were branded in a painful fashion. The natives cut lines in the faces of the slaves, using a sharp point either of gold or of a thorn; they then fill the wounds with a kind of powder dampened with black or red juice, which forms an indelible dye and never disappears. The Spaniards took these slaves with them. It seems that this juice is corrosive and produces such terrible pain that the slaves are unable to eat on account of their sufferings. Both the kings who originally captured these slaves in war, and also the Spaniards, put them to work hunting gold or tilling the fields.
Leaving the town of Javana, the Spaniards followed the watershed for ten miles, and entered the territory of another chief, whom they called the "Old Man," because they were heedless of his name and took notice only of his age. Everywhere in the country of this cacique, both in the riverbeds and in the soil, gold was found. Streams were abundant and the county was everywhere rich and fertile. Leaving that place, the Spaniards marched for five days through a desert country which they thought had been devastated by war, for though the greater part of it was fertile, it was neither inhabited nor cultivated. On the fifth day they perceived in the distance two heavily laden natives, approaching them. Marching upon them, they captured the men, and found that they were carrying sacks of maize on their shoulders. From the answers of these men they gathered that there were two caciques in these regions, one on the coast, called Periqueta, another in the interior, called Totonogo; the latter being blind. These two men were fishermen who had been sent by their cacique Totonogo, to Periqueta, with a burden of fish, which they had traded for bread.[8] Trade is thereabouts carried on by exchange in kind, and not by means of gold, which claims so many victims. Led by these two natives, the Spaniards reached the country of Totonogo, the cacique whose country extends along the west side of the gulf of San Miguel on the south sea. This chieftain gave them six thousand castellanos of gold, partly in ingots and partly worked; amongst the former was one which weighed two castellanos, proving that gold exists in abundance in this region.
[Note 8: There has evidently at some time been an error of transcription: the cacique Totonogo, who is first mentioned as ruling along the sea-coast, is now described as sending fish to his neighbour Periqueta.]
Following along the western coast, the Spaniards visited the cacique Taracuru, from whom they obtained eight thousand pesos; a peso, as we have already said, corresponding to an unminted castellano. They next marched into the country of his brother Pananome, who fled and was seen no more. His subjects declared the country to be rich in gold. The Spaniards destroyed his residence. Six leagues farther on they came to the country of another cacique called Tabor, and then to that of another called Cheru. The latter received the Spaniards amicably, and offered them four thousand pesos. He possesses valuable salt deposits, and the country is rich in gold. Twelve miles farther they came to another cacique called Anata, from whom they obtained twelve thousand pesos, which the cacique had captured from neighbouring chieftains whom he had conquered. This gold was even scorched, because it had been carried out of the burning houses of his enemies. These caciques rob and massacre one another, and destroy their villages, during their atrocious wars. They give no quarter, and the victors make a clean sweep of everything.[9]