Uttering cries of joy, Carlos hastened to meet the Spaniards, refreshing them with food and agreeable drinks, and lavishing generous hospitality upon them. Presents were exchanged, the cacique giving Vasco twenty pounds of worked gold, at eight ounces to the pound, and Vasco satisfying him with equally acceptable presents, such as hatchets, and some carpenters' tools. He likewise gave Carlos a robe and one of his own shirts, because of the extremity to which he was reduced. These gifts elevated Carlos to the rank of a hero among his neighbours. Vasco finally left Comogra and all its people after admonishing them that, if they wished to live in peace, they must never rebel against the rule of the Spanish King. He also urged them to use their best endeavours to collect gold for the Tiba, that is to say, the King. He added that in this way they would secure for themselves and their descendants protection against the attacks of their enemies, and would receive an abundance of our merchandise.
When everything had been satisfactorily arranged, Vasco continued his march towards the country of Poncha, where he met four young men sent from Darien to inform him that well-laden ships had just arrived from Hispaniola; he had promised that, in returning from the South Sea, he would march by some way through that country. Taking with him twenty of his strongest companions he started by forced marches for Darien, leaving behind the others who were to join him. Vasco has written that he reached Darien the fourteenth day of the calends of February in the year 1514, but his letter[2] is dated Darien, the fourth day of the nones of March, as he was unable to send it sooner no ship being ready to sail. He says that he has sent two ships to pick up the people he left behind, and he boasts of having won a number of battles without receiving a wound or losing one of his men in action.
[Note 2: Unfortunately neither this letter or any copy of it is known to exist.]
There is hardly a page of this long letter which is not inscribed with some act of thanksgiving for the great dangers and many hardships he escaped. He never undertook anything or started on his march without first invoking the heavenly powers, and principally the Virgin Mother of God. Our Vasco Balboa is seen to have changed from a ferocious Goliath into an Elias. He was an Antæus; he has been transformed into Hercules the conqueror of monsters. From being foolhardy, he has become obedient and entirely worthy of royal honours and favour. Such are the events made known to us by letters from him and the colonists of Darien, and by verbal reports of people who have returned from those regions.
Perhaps you may desire, Most Holy Father, to know what my sentiments are respecting these events. My opinion is a simple one. It is evident from the military style in which Vasco and his men report their deeds that their statements must be true. Spain need no longer plough up the ground to the depth of the infernal regions or open great roads or pierce mountains at the cost of labour and the risk of a thousand dangers, in order to draw wealth from the earth. She will find riches on the surface, in shallow diggings; she will find them in the sun-dried banks of rivers; it will suffice to merely sift the earth. Pearls will be gathered with little effort. Cosmographers unanimously recognise that venerable antiquity received no such benefit from nature, because never before did man, starting from the known world, penetrate to those unknown regions. It is true the natives are contented with a little or nothing, and are not hospitable; moreover, we have more than sufficiently demonstrated that they receive ungraciously strangers who come amongst them, and only consent to negotiate with them, after they have been conquered. Most ferocious are those new anthropophagi, who live on human flesh, Caribs or cannibals as they are called. These cunning man-hunters think of nothing else than this occupation, and all the time not given to cultivating the fields they employ in wars and man-hunts. Licking their lips in anticipation of their desired prey, these men lie in wait for our compatriots, as the latter would for wild boar or deer they sought to trap. If they feel themselves unequal to a battle, they retreat and disappear with the speed of the wind. If an encounter takes place on the water, men and women swim with as great a facility as though they lived in that element and found their sustenance under the waves.
It is not therefore astonishing that these immense tracts of country should be abandoned and unknown, but the Christian religion, of which you are the head, will embrace its vast extent. As I have said in the beginning, Your Holiness will call to yourself these myriads of people, as the hen gathers her chickens under her wings. Let us now return to Veragua, the place discovered by Columbus, explored under the auspices of Diego Nicuesa, and now abandoned; and may all the other barbarous and savage provinces of this vast continent be brought little by little into the pale of Christian civilisation and the knowledge of the true religion.
BOOK [IV]
I had resolved, Most Holy Father, to stop here but I am consumed, as it were, with an internal fire which constrains me to continue my report. As I have already said, Veragua was discovered by Columbus. I should feel that I had robbed him or committed an inexpiable crime against him were I to pass over the ills he endured, the vexations and dangers to which he was exposed during these voyages. It was in the year of salvation 1502 on the sixth day of the ides of May that Columbus sailed from Cadiz with a squadron of four vessels of from fifty to sixty tons burthen, manned by one hundred and seventy men.[1] Five days of favourable weather brought him to the Canaries; seventeen days' sailing brought him to the island of Domingo, the home of the Caribs, and from thence he reached Hispaniola in five days more, so that the entire crossing from Spain to Hispaniola occupied twenty-six days, thanks to favourable winds and currents, which set from the east towards the west. According to the mariners' report the distance is twelve hundred leagues.
[Note 1: This was the fourth voyage of Columbus.]
He stopped in Hispaniola for some time, either of his own accord or with the Viceroy's[2] assent. Pushing straight to the west, he left the islands of Cuba and Jamaica towards his right on the north, and discovered to the south of Jamaica an island called by its inhabitants Guanassa.[3] This island is incredibly fertile and luxuriant. While coasting along its shores, the Admiral met two of those barques dug out of tree trunks of which I have spoken. They were drawn by naked slaves with ropes round their necks. The chieftain of the island, who, together with his wife and children, were all naked, travelled in these barques. When the Spaniards went on shore the slaves, in obedience to their master's orders, made them understand by haughty gestures that they would have to obey the chief, and when they refused, menaces and threats were employed. Their simplicity is such that they felt neither fear nor admiration on beholding our ships and the number and strength of our men. They seemed to think the Spaniards would feel the same respect towards their chief as they did. Our people perceived that they had to do with merchants returning from another country, for they hold markets. The merchandise consisted of bells, razors, knives, and hatchets made of a yellow and translucent stone; they are fastened in handles of hard and polished wood. There were also household utensils for the kitchen, and pottery of artistic shapes, some made of wood and some made of that same clear stone; and chiefly draperies and different articles of spun cotton in brilliant colours. The Spaniards captured the chief, his family and everything he possessed; but the Admiral soon afterwards ordered him to be set at liberty and the greater part of their property restored, hoping thus to win their friendship.