Pascual de Andagoya

“ I have taken care that the Indians of this land are not ill-treated, permitting no man to injure them, and giving them many things from Castile, whereby they may be drawn into friendship with us. This honourable treatment of the Indians has been the cause of my learning great secrets from them, through the knowledge of which large quantities of gold may be obtained, and your Highness will thus be well served. I have often thought how it will be possible for us to sustain life, seeing that we have been as badly succoured from the island of Española as if we had not been Christians. ”

“ I, Sire, have myself been very near these mountains, within a day's journey, but I did not reach them because I was unable, for a man gets as far as he can, not as far as he wishes. Beyond these mountains the country is very flat towards the south, and the Indians say that the other sea is at a distance of three days' journey. All the caciques and Indians of the country of Comogre tell me that there is such great store of gold collected in lumps, in the houses of the caciques of the other sea, that we should be astonished. ”

“ Your most Royal Highness must know that after we came here, we were forced to travel from one place to another, by reason of the great scarcity, and it astonishes me how we could have endured such hardships. The things that have happened have been more by the hand of God than by the hand of men. Up to the present time I have taken care that none of my people shall go hence unless I myself go in front of them, whether it be by night or day, marching across rivers, through swamps and forests and over mountains ”

“ In these provinces the chiefs received no rent nor tribute from their subjects, except personal service; but whenever a chief wished to build a house, sow a crop, procure fish, or wage war, every one had to assist without receiving any reward beyond food and drink, and thus they neither exacted anything from their people, nor did they want for anything. They were feared and loved, and the gold they possessed was either obtained by barter, or dug out of mines by the Indians. ”

“ He is very miserable if he sees that there is friendship between respectable people, and is pleased to hear gossip amongst his followers. He is a man who more easily believes evil things than good, or those that may be profitable. He is a person without any judgment, and without any genius for government." Vasco Nuñez was writing under a strong feeling of disgust at the wretched misrule which this old incapable had produced: yet the acts of Pedrarias show that the character thus sketched by an enemy was but slightly exaggerated. ”

“ I desire to give an account to your most Royal Highness of the great secrets and marvellous riches of this land of which God has made your most Royal Highness the Lord, and me the discoverer before any other, for which I give many thanks and much praise for all the days of the world, and I hold myself to be the most fortunate man that has been born in the world, seeing that our Lord has been served at my hands rather than at those of another. ”

“ On this coast of Panama, as far as the gulf of San Miguel, streams of fresh water enter the sea at every quarter or half league.
In all the rivers which enter the sea, there are a great quantity of those serpents which we call lizards. [59] In the rivers they do people harm; but on the land they are very torpid, though they are ready to resist and defend themselves, yet they cannot run fast. When I was in the province of Guanate with thirty men, we surrounded one of these serpents in a place where it could not swim, wishing to kill it for food. ”

“ Those Indians in certain of the provinces, who eat men, and others at the bottom of the gulf of Uraba and in the extensive flooded parts near the great river of San Juan and round the gulf, at the entrance of the flat country of the province of Davaive, have no workshops, nor do they support themselves on anything but fish, which they exchange for maize. These are worthless people, and when canoes of Christians have gone on the great river of San Juan, they have come against them, and have killed some of our people. ”

“ There are many wolves in this land, which live upon the deer. They make wine from a kind of cherry, which is as strong as the wine of Spain, although the strength soon passes away. In all the countries I have mentioned the whole happiness of the people consists in drinking the wine they make from maize, which is like beer, and on this they get as drunk as if it was the wine of Spain, and all the festivals they hold, are for the purpose of drinking.
In this province there is a volcano from which smoke constantly issues, and at night it may be seen for three leagues round. ”

“ One of the captains of Pedrarias, named Meneses, established a settlement called Santa Cruz, in the territory of a chief named Pocorosa, in the province of Cueva, on the north sea. From this settlement he advanced into the province of Cueva with part of his forces, and was defeated by the Indians, several of his people being killed. Then, seeing that the Spaniards in Santa Cruz were defeated and reduced in numbers, the Indians attacked them, and killed them all, so that no one remained alive except a woman, whom the chief took for himself, and lived with as his wife for several years. ”

“ Thus Pizarro forestalled him in the discovery of Peru, and he never stood a chance against the bold and unscrupulous Belalcazar, in the struggle for the government of Popayan. The historian Oviedo, who knew him well during the early days of the Darien colony, speaks of him as a noble-minded and virtuous person. He was a man of some education, and his humane treatment of the Indians entitles his name to honourable mention in any history of Spanish conquest in South America. ”

“ And another province, which was called the land of confusion, because there was no chief in it, is also called Cueva. The people are all one, speaking one language, and are dressed like those of Acla. From this province of Peruqueta to Adechame, a distance of forty leagues still in a westerly direction, the country is called Coiba, and the language is the same as that of Cueva, only more polished, and the people have more self-assertion. They differ also in the men not wearing the shells, like those of Cueva; for they go quite naked, without any covering. ”

“ From Chiru he went to the province of Nata. The Indians had never seen Spaniards, and held such people to have fallen from the skies, and they would not attack them until they knew whether they would die. Thus the Spaniards went from Nata and Escoria, without having recourse to war, and came to the province of Paris, which is twelve leagues from Nata to the westward; for nearly all this land, as far as Nicaragua, trends to the westward. The chief of Paris, with his people, concealed himself from the Spaniards, who had brought two principal men from Nata as guides and interpreters. ”

“ Very few of these survived the battles in Paris; but I saw some, by the side of whom the other Indians looked like dwarfs. They were very handsome and well made. As they were waging war in the land of another, and as the vassal chiefs of Paris could retire each day to refresh themselves, the latter maintained the war with more ease. Finally, they threw away their arms, and closed in an embrace, biting each other. As those of Escoria were bigger and stronger than those of Paris, they worsted them ”

“ But the nature of the land is such that, if he, who has charge of the government, sleeps, he cannot awake when he wishes; for it is a land that obliges him who governs to be very watchful. For this reason the people desired to be rid of men who did not care whether things went well or ill, like Diego de Nicuesa. This was the cause of the ruin both of the one governor and of the other. ”

“ The town of Nata is a large and well compacted town, situated upon the banks of a river of the same name. It has great trade with Panama, selling them provisions, as cows, hogs, fowls, and maize. From Nata the coast stretches in mountains and hills, and the water is so shoal that there is scarcely any coming in for a ship; but if there were, here is never a port. Along this coast ships ought to keep two or three leagues off shore, or else they will meet with broken ground and sunk rocks; but the coast has many fresh water rivers, full of several sorts of very good fish. ”

“ The languages of Escoria and Nata are different, and each chief has a different language, so that they require interpreters. In this land of Paris there are great quantities of deer and dantas; [43] but the Indians of war never eat meat, except fish and iguanas, though the Indians, who are labourers, do eat flesh. In all these districts the people wear the same dress as those of Coiba, except that in Paris their mantles are dyed with very bright colours. In food and everything else they follow the habits of those of Cueva and Coiba. ”

“ The people are rich, and not given to war, for it is enough that five or six men jump ashore from a boat, to frighten them away from their fortresses. Near this province there is a valley, nearly opposite the island of Gallo, called "de los Cedros," which is very populous and rich, and each house has its yard for the pigs of the country. The women have their arms covered with bracelets of fine gold in great quantity. News of the riches of this district and of the rites and ceremonies of the people have been received from all parts. ”

“ The flour and other stores were injured by the sea, and this, added to the evil nature of the land, which is woody, covered with swamps, and very thinly inhabited, brought on so much sickness among the people, that they could not be cured, and in one month seven hundred men died of sickness and hunger. Our arrival weighed so much on those who were already settled at Darien, that they would do no act of charity for any one. ”

“ Vasco Nuñez, in a letter to the king, dated October 16th, 1515, thus describes Pedrarias. "With respect to the governor, although an honourable person, your highness must know that he is very old for this country, and that he is very ill of a serious disease, insomuch that he has not been well for a single day since he arrived. He is excessively impatient, and is a man that would not care much if half his followers were lost. He has never punished the evil deeds and murders that have been committed both on caciques and Indians by those who have invaded the country. ”

“ Alvarado committed many cruelties, and pacified the land at great cost to the inhabitants. He took away many people for the expedition he made to Peru, and made slaves as in Nicaragua, so that there has been a great diminution in the number of inhabitants in that land. It is a very fertile and healthy country. This government contains the city of Santiago, and the towns of San Salvador and San Miguel, which is on the confines of Nicaragua. The people of this land are like those of New Spain. In the year 1541, the Indians killed the Adelantado Don Pedro de Alvarado, on his way from Mexico. ”

“ Many Indians who have seen them, tell me that this cacique Davaive has certain bags of gold, and that it takes the whole strength of a man to lift one of them on to his back.
"The cacique collects the gold, and this is the manner of his obtaining it.
"Two days' journey from his house there is a very beautiful country inhabited by a very evil Carib race, who eat as many men as they can get. They are a people without a chief, and there is no one whom they obey. They are warlike, and each man is his own master. ”

“ The very rich mines are in this land towards the rising of the sun, and it is two days' journey from the rich mines to the abode of this cacique Davaive.
"There are two methods of collecting the gold without any trouble. One is by waiting until the river rises in the ravines, and when the freshes pass off, the beds remain dry, and the gold is laid bare, which has been robbed from the mountains and brought down in very large lumps. The Indians describe them as being the size of oranges or of a fist, and others like flat slabs. ”

“ The ships which pass by, take quantities on board, and with it they tar the ropes and the ship's sides. On this coast there are salt deposits within the water of the sea, where the ships that pass take in cargos. The Indians of that land, owing to the slight resistance it offers, cut it out in blocks, and these blocks are of very excellent salt. From Tumbez onwards to Cuzco the land is so destitute of trees that in many parts of the road no place can be found to tie up a horse. Besides the sheep there are plenty of deer, partridges, and other birds, different from those of Spain. ”

“ From the tops of the mountains, towards Timana, there is a different language; and there are many other languages in the two chains of mountains as far as Quito. Of the twenty leagues between Popayan and Lili, the ten nearest Popayan are over a cold country, where a fire is necessary; and the ten towards Lili are over a warm country, with almost the climate of Panama. The whole is a very beautiful land, with plains, rivers full of fish, and abundant hunting of deer and rabbits. This land, now laid waste, was a most populous and fertile country, abounding in maize, fruit, and ducks. ”