[13] The similitude is not obvious, but may have been intended to comprae this mountain with the lofty sharp pinnacle on which the hermitage is built near St Jago de Compostella in Spain.--E.
On Thursday the 14th of February, the lieutenant went into the country with 40 men, a boat following with 14 more. The next day they came to the river Urira seven leagues west from Belem. The cacique came a league out of this town to meet him with 20 men, and presented him with such things as they feed on, and some gold plates were exchanged here. This cacique and his chief men never ceased putting a dry herb into their mouths, which they chewed and sometimes they took a sort of powder which they carried along with that herb, which singular custom astonished our people very much[14]. Having rested here a while, the Christians and Indians went to the town, where they were met by great numbers of people, had a large house appointed for their habitation, and were supplied with plenty of provisions. Soon after came the cacique of Dururi, a neighbouring town, with a great many Indians, who brought some gold plates to exchange. All these Indians said that there were caciques farther up the country who had abundance of gold, and great numbers of men armed as ours were. Next day the lieutenant ordered part of his men to return to the ships, and with 30 whom he retained, beheld on his journey to Zobraba, where the fields for six leagues were all full of maize like corn fields. Thence he went to Cateba another town, and was well entertained at both places with abundance of provisions, and some gold plates were bartered. These are like, the pattern of a chalice, some bigger and some less, and weighed about twelve ducats more or less, and the Indians wear them hanging from their necks by a string as we do relics. Being now very far from the ships, without having found any port along the coast, or any river larger than that of Belem on which to settle his colony, the lieutenant came back on the 24th of February, bringing with him a considerable value in gold which he had acquired by barter during his journey.
[14] This is probably the first time that Europeans had seen tobacco chewed and the use of snuff; practices which have now become almost necessaries of life among many millions of the inhabitants of Europe and its colonies.--E.
Immediately on his return preparations were made for his stay, and eighty men were appointed to remain with him. These were divided into gangs of ten men each, and began to build houses on the bank of the Belem river on the right hand going up, about a cannon-shot from its mouth, and the infant colony was protected by surrounding it with a trench. The mouth of this river is marked by a small hill. The houses were all built of timber and covered with palm leaves, which grew abundantly along the banks of the river; and besides the ordinary houses for the colony, a large house was built to serve as a magazine and store-house, into which several pieces of cannon, powder, provisions, and other necessaries for the use and support of the planters were put. But the wine, biscuit, oil, vinegar, cheese, and a considerable supply of grain were left in the ship Gallega as the safest place; which was to be left with the lieutenant for the service of the colony, with all its cordage, nets, hooks and other tackle; for, as has been already said, there is vast abundance of fish in every river of that coast, several sorts at certain seasons running along the coast in shoals, on which the people of the country live more than upon flesh, for though there are some beasts of different sorts, there are by no means enough to maintain the inhabitants.
The customs of these Indians are for the most part much the same as those of Hispaniola and the neighbouring islands; but those people of Veragua and the country about it, when they talk to one another are constantly turning their backs and always chewing an herb, which we believed to be the reson that their teeth were rotten and decayed. Their food is mostly fish, which they take with nets, and with hooks made of tortoiseshell, which they cut with a thread as if they were sawing, in the same manner as is done in the islands. They have another way of catching some very small fishes, which are called Titi in Hispaniola. At certain times these are driven towards the shore by the rains, and are so persecuted by the larger fish that they are forced up to the surface in shoal water, where the Indians take as many of them as they have a mind by means of little matts or small meshed nets. They wrap these up singly in certain leaves, and having dried them in an oven they will keep a great while. They also catch pilchards in the same manner; for at certain times these fly with such violence from the pursuit of the large fish, that they will leap out of the water two or three paces on the dry land, so that they have nothing to do but take them as they do the Titi. These pilchards are taken after another manner: They raise a partition of palm-tree leaves two yards high in the middle of a canoe, fore and aft as the seamen call it, or from stem to stern; then plying about the river they make a great noise, beating the shores with their paddles, and then the pilchards, to fly from the other fish, leap into the canoe, where hitting against the partition they fall in, and by this means they often take vast numbers[15]. Several sorts of fish pass along the coast in vast shoals, whereof immense quantities are taken; and these will keep a long time after being roasted or dried in the way already mentioned.
[15] It is probable that the fish, here called pilchards were of one of the kinds of flying fish, which is of the same genus with the herring and pilchard. Voyagers ignorant of natural history are extremely apt to name new objects after corresponding resemblances in their own country.--E.
These Indians have also abundance of maize, a species of grain which grows in an ear or hard head like millet, and from which they make a white and red wine, as beer is made in England, mixing it with their spice as it suits their palate, having a pleasant taste like sharp brisk wine. They also make another sort of wine from certain trees like palms which have prickly trunks like thorns: This wine is made from the pith of these palms, which resemble squeezed palmitoes, and from which they extract the juice and boil it up with water and spice. They make another wine from a fruit which grows likewise in Guadaloup, resembling a large pine-apple. This is planted in large fields, and the plant is a sprout growing from the top of the fruit, like that which grows from a cabbage or lettuce. One plant lasts in bearing for three or four years. They likewise make wines from other sorts of fruit; particularly from one that grows upon very high trees, which is as big as a large lemon, and has several stones like nuts, from two to nine in each, not round but long like chesnuts. The rind of this fruit is like a pomegranate, and when first taken from the tree it resembles it exactly, save only that it wants the prickly circle at the top. The taste of it is like a peach; and of them some are better than others, as is usual in other fruits. There are some of these in the islands, where they are named Mamei by the Indians.
All things being settled for the Christian colony and ten or twelve houses built and thatched, the admiral wished to have sailed for Spain; but he was now threatened by even a greater danger from want of water in the river, than that he had formerly experienced by the inundation. For the great rains in January being now over, the mouth of the river was so choked up with sand, that though there were ten feet of water on the bar when we came in, which was scant enough, there were now only two feet when we wished to have gone out. We were thus shut up without prospect of relief, as it was impossible to get over the sand; and even if we had possessed any engine calculated for this purpose, the sea was so boisterous that the smallest of the waves which broke upon the shore was enough to have beat the ships in pieces, more especially as ours were now all eaten through and through by the worms like a honeycomb. We had nothing left therefore, but to pray to God for rain, as we had before prayed for fair weather; as we knew that rain would swell the river and clear away the sand.
In the meantime it was discovered by means of our interpreter, an Indian whom we had taken not far off above three months before, and who willingly went along with us, that Quibio the cacique of Veragua, intended to set fire to the houses and destroy the Christians, as all the Indians were averse to the settlement of our people in their country. It was therefore thought proper, as a punishment to this cacique and a terror and example to the other Indians, to take him and all his chief men prisoners into Spain, that his town and tribe might remain subjected to the Christians. Accordingly, the lieutenant went with a party of seventy-six men towards Veragua, on the 30th of March, to execute this project. This town or village is not built close together, but all the houses are built at considerable distances as in Biscay. When Quibio understood that the lieutenant was come near, he sent word for him not to come up to his house; but the lieutenant, that he might not seem any way afraid of these people, went up notwithstanding this message, accompanied only by five men; ordering all the rest to halt at the foot of the hill on which the caciques house was situated, and desiring them to come after him, two and two together, at some distance from each other; and that when they should hear a musket fired, they should all run up, and beset the house that none of them might escape.
When the lieutenant came to the house, Quibio sent another message to desire that he might not come in, for though wounded by an arrow, he would come out to receive him, and he acted in this manner to prevent his women from being seen, these Indians being exceedingly jealous on that score. He came out accordingly and sat down at the door, requesting that the lieutenant alone might approach; who did so, ordering the rest to fall on whenever they saw him seize hold of the cacique by the arm. He asked Quibio some questions concerning his wound, and the affairs of the country, by means of the before-mentioned interpreter, who was exceedingly fearful, as he knew the intentions of the cacique to destroy the Christians, which he thought might easily be done by the great numbers of people in that province, as he had as yet no experience of the strength of our people or the power of their weapons. Pretending to look where the cacique had been wounded; the lieutenant took hold of his arm, and kept so firm a grasp, though Quibio was a strong man, that he held him fast till the other five Christians came up to his assistance, one of whom fired off his musket, upon which all the rest ran out from their ambush and surrounded the house, in which there were thirty people old and young; most of whom were taken, and none wounded, for on seeing their king a prisoner they made no resistance. Among the prisoners there were some wives and children of the cacique, and some inferior chiefs, who said they had a great treasure concealed in the adjoining wood, and offered to give the whole of it for the ransom of their cacique and themselves. But the lieutenant would not listen to their proposals, and ordered Quibio, with his wives and children, and the principal people who had been made prisoners, to be immediately carried on board, before the country took the alarm, and remained with most of his men to go after the kindred and subjects of the captured cacique, many of whom had fled. John Sanchez of Cadiz, one of our pilots, and a man of good reputation, was appointed to take charge of the prisoners, and more especially of Quibio, who was bound hand and foot, and on being charged to take particular care that he might not escape, he said he would give them leave to pull his beard off if he got away. Sanchez and his prisoners embarked with an escort in the boats to go down the river of Veragua to the ships; and when within half a league of its mouth, Quibio complained that his hands were bound too tight, on which Sanchez compassionately loosened him from the seat of the boat to which he was tied, and held the rope in his hand. A little after this, observing that he was not very narrowly watched, Quibio sprung into the water, and Sanchez let go the rope that he might not be dragged in after him. Night was coming on, and the people in the boat were in such confusion that they could not see or hear where he got on shore, for they heard no more of him than if a stone had fallen into the water and disappeared. That the rest of the prisoners might not likewise escape, they held on their way to the ships much ashamed of their carelessness.