De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) by Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

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BOOK X

As soon as he landed, the governor, Pedro Arias, confided to a certain
Gaspar Morales an expedition to Isla Rica.[1] Morales first passed by
the country of Chiapes, called Chiapeios, and of Tumaco, those two
caciques along the South Sea who were friends of Vasco. He and his men
were received magnificently as friends, and a fleet was equipped for
attacking the island. This island is called Rica and not Margarita,
although many pearls are found there; for the name Margarita was first
bestowed upon another island near Paria and the region called Boca de
la Sierpe, where many pearls had likewise been found. Morales landed
upon the island with only sixty men, the dimensions of his boats,
called culches, not permitting him to take a larger number. The proud
and formidable king of the island, whose name I have not learned,
advanced to meet them, escorted by a large number of warriors, and
proffering menaces. Guazzaciara is their war-cry; when they utter this
cry, they let fly their javelins; they do not use bows. Guazzaciara
means a battle; so they engaged in four guazzaciaras, in which the
Spaniards, aided by their allies of Chiapes and Tumaco, who were that
chieftain's enemies, were victorious. Their attack was in the nature
of a surprise. The cacique wished to assemble a larger army, but
was dissuaded by his neighbours along the coast from continuing the
struggle. Some by their example, and others by threatening him with
the ruin of a flourishing country, demonstrated that the friendship of
the Spaniards would bring glory and profit to himself and his friends.
They reminded him of the misfortunes which had the preceding year
befallen Poncha, Pochorroso, Quarequa, Chiapes, Tumaco, and others who
attempted to resist. The cacique gave up fighting and came to meet
the Spaniards, whom he conducted to his palace, which was a veritable
royal residence marvellously decorated. Upon their arrival at his
house he presented them with a very well-wrought basket filled with
pearls of ten pounds weight, at eight ounces to the pound.

[Note 1: The description at this point is inaccurate and
misleading. The pearl islands number in all one hundred and
eighty-three, forming an archipelago. There are thirty-nine islands
of considerable size, of which the principal ones are San Jose, San
Miguel, and Isla del Rey; the others are small, some being no more
than reefs, or isolated rocks rising above the surface of the sea.]

The cacique was overjoyed when they presented him with their usual
trifles, such as glass beads, mirrors, copper bells, and perhaps some
iron hatchets, for the natives prize these things more than heaps of
gold. In fact, they even make fun of the Spaniards for exchanging such
important and useful articles for such a little gold. Hatchets can
be put to a thousand uses among them, while gold is merely a not
indispensable luxury. Pleased and enchanted by his bargains, the
cacique, took the captain and his officers by the hand and led them
to the top of one of the towers of his house from whence the view
embraced an immense horizon towards the sea. Looking about him, he
said: "Behold the infinite ocean which has no end towards the rising
sun." He pointed to the east, and afterwards turning to the south and
the west he gave them to understand that the continent, on which the
vast mountain ranges were perceptible in the distance, was very large.
Glancing about nearer to them, he said: "These islands lying to the
left and right along the two coasts of our residence belong to us.
They are all rich; they are all happy, if you call lands happy which
abound in gold and pearls. In this particular place there is not much
gold, but the shores of all these islands are strewn with pearls,
and I will give you as many as you want if you will be my friends. I
prefer your manufactures to my pearls, and I wish to possess them.
Therefore do not imagine that I desire to break off relations with
you."

Such were the words, amongst many others similar, they exchanged. When
the Spaniards planned to leave, the cacique promised to send each year
as a present to the great king of Castile a hundred pounds of pearls,
at eight ounces to the pound. He made this promise voluntarily,
attaching little importance to it, and in no way considering himself
their tributary.

There are so many rabbits and deer in that island that, without
leaving their houses, the Spaniards could kill as many as they chose
with their arrows. Their life there was luxurious, and nothing was
wanting. The royal residence lies only six degrees from the equator.
Yucca, maize bread, and wine made from grains and fruits, are the same
as at Comogra or amongst the other continental and insular tribes.

The cacique, Most Holy Father, was baptised with all his people who
are become as sheep under their shepherd to increase your flock.
Pedro Arias, the governor, wished to bestow his name upon them. The
friendship established increased, and the cacique, to assist the
Spaniards to regain the continent more easily, lent them his
fishermen's culches, that is to say barques dug out of treetrunks in
the native fashion. He also accompanied them to the shore.

After setting aside the fifth for the royal officials, the Spaniards
divided amongst themselves the pearls they had secured. They say they
are extremely valuable. Here is a proof of the great value of the
pearls from that island. Many of them are white and have a beautiful
orient, and are as large or even larger than a nut. What has quickened
my recollection is the remembrance of a pearl which the Sovereign
Pontiff, Paul, predecessor of Your Holiness, bought from a Venetian
merchant through the intermediary of my relative Bartolomeo the
Milanese, for forty-four thousand ducats. Now amongst the pearls
brought from the island there is one equal in size to an ordinary
nut. It was sold at auction and bought at Darien for twelve thousand
castellanos of gold, ending in the hands of the governor, Pedro Arias.
This precious pearl now belongs to his wife, of whom we have already
spoken at the time of his departure. We may assume, therefore, that
this pearl was the most precious of all, since it was valued so highly
amongst that mass of pearls which were bought, not singly, but by the
ounce. It is probable that the Venetian merchant had not paid such a
price in the East for the pearl of Pope Paul; but he lived at a time
when such objects were greedily sought and a lover of pearls was
waiting to swallow it.

Let us now say something of the shells in which pearls grow. Your
Beatitude is not ignorant of the fact that Aristotle, and Pliny who
followed the former in his theories, were not of the same opinion
concerning the growth of pearls. They held but one point in common,
and upon all others they differed. Neither would admit that pearl
oysters moved after they were once formed. They declare that there
exist at the bottom of the sea, meadows, as it were, upon which an
aromatic plant resembling thyme grows; they affirm they had seen these
fields. In such places these animals resembling oysters are born and
grow, engendering about them numerous progeny. They are not satisfied
to have one, three, four, or even more pearls, for as many as a
hundred and twenty pearls have been found in one shell on the
fisheries of that island; and the captain, Caspar Morales, and his
companions carefully counted them. While the Spaniards were there,
the cacique had his divers bring up pearls. The matrix of these pearl
oysters may be compared to the organ in which hens form their numerous
eggs. The pearls are produced in the following manner: as soon as they
are ripe and leave the womb of their mother, they are found detached
from the lips of the matrix. They follow one by one each in turn
detaching itself, after a brief interval. In the beginning the pearls
are enclosed, as it were, in the belly of the oyster, where they grow
just as a child while in the womb of its mother lives on the substance
of her body. Later on they leave the maternal asylum, where they were
hidden. The pearl oysters found--as I myself have seen from time to
time--upon the beach and imbedded in the sand on different Atlantic
coasts, have been cast up from the depths of the sea by storms, and do
not come there of themselves. Why brilliant morning dew gives a white
tint to pearls; why bad weather causes them to turn yellow; why they
like a clear sky, and remain immovable when it thunders, are questions
which cannot be examined with precision by those ignorant natives. It
is not a subject that can be treated by limited minds. It is further
said that the largest pearl oysters remain at the bottom, the commoner
ones in the half-depths, and the little ones near the surface; but
the reasons given to sustain this theory are poor ones. The immovable
mollusc does not reason about the choice of its home. Everything
depends on the determination, the ability, and the breath of the
divers. The large pearl oysters do not move about; they are created
and find their sustenance in the deepest places, for the number of
divers who venture to penetrate to the bottom of the sea to collect
them is few. They are afraid of polyps, which are greedy for oyster
meat and are always grouped about the places where they are. They are
likewise afraid of other sea-monsters, and most of all they fear to
suffocate if they stay too long under water. The pearl oysters in the
profoundest depths of the sea consequently have time to grow, and
the larger and older the shell becomes, the larger the pearls they
harbour, though in number they are few. Those born at the bottom of
the sea are believed to become food for the fish; when first gathered
they are soft, and the shape of the ear is different from the larger
ones. It is alleged that no pearl adheres to the shell as it grows
old, but there grows in the shell itself a sort of round and brilliant
lump which acquires lustre by filing. This, however, is not valuable,
and takes its nature rather from the shell than from the pearl. The
Spaniards call the tympanum _pati_.[2] Sometimes pearl oysters have
been found growing in small colonies upon rocks, but they are not
prized. It is credible that the oysters of India, Arabia, the Red Sea,
and Ceylon exist in the manner described by celebrated authors, nor
should the explanations given by such eminent writers be entirely
rejected; I speak of those who have been for a long time in
contradiction with one another.

[Note 2: _Pati appellat Hispanus tympanum_; a sentence for which
the translator has found no satisfactory meaning.]

We have already spoken enough about these sea-animals and their eggs,
which luxury-loving people stupidly prefer to the eggs of chickens or
ducks. Let us add some further details outside our subject.

We have above described the entrance to the Gulf of Uraba, and said
the different countries washed by its waters were strangely different
from one another. I have nothing new to relate of the western shore,
where the Spaniards established their colony on the banks of the
Darien River.

What I have recently learnt about the eastern shore is as follows:
the entire country lying to the east between the promontory and shore
which extend into the sea and receive the force of the waves, as far
as Boca de la Sierpe and Paria, is called by the general name of
Caribana. Caribs are found everywhere, and are called from the name of
their country,[3] but it is well to indicate from whence the Caribs
take their origin, and how, after leaving their country, they have
spread everywhere like a deadly contagion. Nine miles from the first
coast encountered coming from seawards where, as we have said, Hojeda
settled, stands in the province of Caribana a village called Futeraca;
three miles farther on is the village of Uraba, which gives its name
to the gulf and was formerly the capital of the kingdom. Six miles
farther on is the village of Feti, and at the ninth and twelfth miles
respectively stand the villages of Zeremoe and Sorachi, all thickly
populated. All the natives in these parts indulged in man-hunts, and
when there are no enemies to fight they practise their cruelties
on one another. From this place the infection has spread to the
unfortunate inhabitants of the islands and continent.

[Note 3: There are more theories than one concerning the origin of
the Caribs and their name. Among other writers who have treated this
subject may be cited Reville, in an article published in the _Nouvelle
Revue_, 1884, and Rochefort in his _Histoire naturelle et morale des
isles Antilles_.]

There is another fact I think I should not omit. A learned lawyer
called Corales, who is a judge at Darien, reported that he encountered
a fugitive from the interior provinces of the west, who sought refuge
with the cacique. This man, seeing the judge reading, started with
surprise, and asked through interpreters who knew the cacique's
language, "You also have books? You also understand the signs by which
you communicate with the absent?" He asked at the same time to look
at the open book, hoping to see the same characters used among his
people; but he saw the letters were not the same. He said that in his
country the towns were walled and the citizens wore clothing and were
governed by laws. I have not learned the nature of their religion, but
it is known from examining this fugitive, and from his speech, that
they are circumcised.[4] What, Most Holy Father, do you think of this?
What augury do you, to whose domination time will submit all peoples,
draw for the future?

[Note 4: ..._recutiti tamen dispraeputiatique, ab exemplo et
sermone fugitivi confererunt_. The man may have been a Peruvian or
of the civilised plateau people of Cundinamarca. Wiener, in his
interesting work, _Perou et Bolivie_, studies the Peruvian system of
writing.]

Let us add to these immense considerations some matters of less
importance. I think that I should not omit mentioning the voyage of
Juan Solis,[5] who sailed from the ocean port of Lepe, near Cadiz,
with three ships, the fourth day of the ides of September, 1515, to
explore the southern coasts of what was supposed to be a continent.
Nor do I wish to omit mention of Juan Ponce,[6] commissioned to
conquer the Caribs, anthropophagi who feed on human flesh; or of
Juan Ayora de Badajoz, or Francisco Bezerra, and of Valleco, already
mentioned by me. Solis was not successful in his mission. He set out
to double the cape or promontory of San Augustin and to follow the
coast of the supposed continent as far as the equator. We have already
indicated that this cape lies in the seventh degree of the antarctic
pole. Solis continued six hundred leagues farther on, and observed
that the cape San Augustin extended so far beyond the equator to the
south that it reached beyond the thirtieth degree of the Southern
Hemisphere. He therefore sailed for a long distance beyond the Boca de
la Sierpe and Spanish Paria, which face the north and the pole star.
In these parts are found some of those abominable anthropophagi,
Caribs, whom I have mentioned before. With fox-like astuteness these
Caribs feigned amicable signs, but meanwhile prepared their stomachs
for a succulent repast; and from their first glimpse of the strangers
their mouths watered like tavern trenchermen. The unfortunate Solis
landed with as many of his companions as he could crowd into the
largest of the barques, and was treacherously set upon by a multitude
of natives who killed him and his men with clubs in the presence of
the remainder of his crew.[7] Not a soul escaped; and after having
killed and cut them in pieces on the shore, the natives prepared to
eat them in full view of the Spaniards, who from their ships witnessed
this horrible sight. Frightened by these atrocities, the men did not
venture to land and execute vengeance for the murder of their leader
and companions. They loaded their ships with red wood, which the
Italians call verzino and the Spaniards brazil-wood, and which is
suitable for dyeing wool; after which they returned home. I have
learned these particulars by correspondence, and I here repeat them. I
shall further relate what the other explorers accomplished.

[Note 5: Juan Diaz de Solis, a native of Sebixa, sailed with
Vincente Yanez 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 a 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]

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