[Note 2: Sex attulerunt sarcinas brevi dierum numero. The word sarcinas as an expression of measure is vague.]
Happy and satisfied with these discoveries, Vasco decided to return by another route to his companions at Darien, who were gold-mining about ten miles from their village. He dismissed Chiapes, charging him to come no farther and to take good care of himself. They embraced one another, and it was with difficulty that the cacique restrained his tears while they shook hands at parting. Vasco left his sick there and, guided by the sailors of Chiapes, he set out with his able-bodied men. The little company crossed a great river which was not fordable, and entered the territory of a chief called Taocha who was very pleased upon learning of their arrival, for he already knew the customs of the Spaniards. He came out to meet them, receiving them with honour, and making salutations as a proof of his affection. He presented Vasco with twenty pounds (at eight ounces to the pound) of artistically worked gold, and two hundred selected pearls; the latter were not, however, very brilliant. They shook hands and Taocha, accepting the gifts offered him, begged that the people of Chiapes should be dismissed, as he himself wished to have the pleasure of escorting his guests.
When the Spaniards left his village he not only furnished them guides, but also slaves who were prisoners of war and who took the place of beasts of burden in carrying on their shoulders provisions for the march. They had to pass through lonely forests and over steep and rocky mountains, where ferocious lions and tigers abounded. Taocha placed his favourite son in command of the slaves, whom he loaded with salt fish and bread made of yucca and maize; he commanded his son never to leave the Spaniards and not to come back without permission from Vasco. Led by this young man, they entered the territory of a chief called Pacra, who was an atrocious tyrant. Whether frightened because conscious of his crimes, or whether he felt himself powerless, Pacra fled.
During this month of November the Spaniards suffered greatly from the heat and from the torments of thirst, for very little water is found in that mountainous region. They would all have perished, had not two of them who went to search for water, carrying the pumpkins Taocha's people brought with them, found a little spring which the natives had pointed out, hidden in a remote corner of the forest. None of the latter had ventured to stray from the main body, for they were afraid of being attacked by wild beasts. They recounted that on these heights and in the neighbourhood of this spring, ferocious beasts had carried off people in the night, and even from their cabins. They were, therefore, careful to put bolts and all kinds of bars on their doors. It may perhaps not be out of place, before going farther, to relate a particular instance. It is said that last year a tiger ravaged Darien, doing as much damage as did formerly the raging boar of Calydon or the fierce Nemæan lion. During six entire months, not a night passed without a victim, whether a mare, a colt, a dog, or a pig being taken, even in the street of the town. The flocks and the animals might be sacrificed but it was not safe for people to quit their houses, especially when it sought food for its whelps; for when they were hungry the monster attacked people it found rather than animals. Anxiety led to the invention of a means of avenging so much bloodshed. The path it took when leaving its lair at night in search of prey, was carefully studied. The natives cut the road, digging a ditch which they covered over with boughs and earth. The tiger, which was a male, was incautious, and, falling into the ditch, remained there, stuck on the sharp points fixed in the bottom. Its roarings filled the neighbourhood and the mountains echoed with piercing howls. They killed the monster stuck on the points, by throwing great stones from the banks of the ditch. With one blow of its paw it broke the javelins thrown at it into a thousand fragments, and even when dead and no longer breathing, it filled all who beheld him with terror. What would have happened had it been free and unhurt! A civilian called Juan de Ledesma, a friend of Vasco, and his companion in danger, says that he ate the flesh of that tiger; he told me that it was not inferior to beef. When one asks these people who have never seen tigers why they affirm that this beast was a tiger, they reply that it was because it was spotted, ferocious, sly, and offered other characteristics which others have attributed to tigers. Nevertheless the majority of Spaniards affirm that they have seen spotted leopards and panthers.
After the male tiger was killed, they followed its track through the mountains, and discovered the cave where it lived with its family. The female was absent; but two little ones, still unweaned, were lying there, and these the Spaniards carried away; but changing their minds afterwards and wishing to carry them to Spain when they were a little larger, they put carefully riveted chains round their necks and took them back to the cave, in order that their mother might nurse them. Some days later they went back and found the chains still there, but the cave was empty. It is thought the mother, in a fury, tore the little ones to pieces, and took them away, in order that nobody should have them; for they could not possibly have got loose from their chains alive. The dead tiger's skin was stuffed with dried herbs and straw, and sent to Hispaniola to be presented to the Admiral and other officials, from whom the colonists of those two new countries obtain laws and assistance.
This story was told me by those who had suffered from the ravages of that tiger,[3] and had touched its skin; let us accept what they give us.
[Note 3: As has been observed, there were no tigers in America. The animal described may have been a jaguar.]
Let us now return to Pacra, from whom we have somewhat wandered. After having entered the boios (that is to say, the house) abandoned by the cacique, Vasco sought to induce him to return by means of envoys who made known the conditions already proposed to other caciques; but for a long time Pacra refused. Vasco then tried threats, and the cacique finally decided to come in, accompanied by three others. Vasco writes that he was deformed, and so dirty and hideous that nothing more abominable could be imagined. Nature confined herself to giving him a human form, but he is a brute beast, savage and monstrous. His morals were on a par with his bearing and physiognomy. He had carried off the daughters of four neighbouring caciques to satisfy his brutal passions. The neighbouring chiefs, regarding Vasco as a supreme judge or a Hercules, a redresser of injuries, complained of the debaucheries and the crimes of Pacra, begging that he should be punished by death. Vasco had this filthy beast and the other three caciques, who obeyed him and shared his passions, torn to pieces by dogs of war, and the fragments of their bodies were afterwards burnt. Astonishing things are said about these dogs the Spaniards take into battle. These animals throw themselves with fury on the armed natives pointed out to them, as if they were timid deer or fierce boars; and it often happens that there is no need of swords or javelins to rout the enemy. A command is given to these dogs who form the vanguard, and the natives at the mere sight of these formidable Molossians[4] and the unaccustomed sound of their baying, break their ranks and flee as though horrified and stupefied by some unheard-of prodigy. This does not occur in fighting against the natives of Caramaira or the Caribs, who are braver and understand more about war. They shoot their poisoned arrows with the rapidity of lightning, and kill the dogs in great numbers; but the natives of these mountains do not use arrows in warfare; they only use machanes,[5] that is to say, large wooden swords, and lances with burnt points.
[Note 4: Torvo molossorum adspectu. Referring to the dogs of Epirus, called by the Romans, Molossi.]
[Note 5: The maquahuitle of the Mexicans; a flat wooden club, in which blades of iztli, or flint, were set on the opposite edges; it was their most formidable weapon in hand-to-hand encounters.]