When These Went On Shore, There Came Another With
Three Men, Wearing Gold Plates At Their Necks, Who Parted With Them As The
Others Had Done.
Amity being thus settled, our men went on shore, where
they found numbers of people along with their king, who differed in
nothing from the rest, except that he was covered with one large leaf of a
tree to defend him from the rain which then fell in torrents.
To give his
subjects a good example, he bartered away his gold plate, and bade them
exchange theirs with our men, so that they got nineteen in all of pure
gold. This was the first place in the Indies where our people had seen any
sign of building, as they here found a great mass of wall or masonry that
seemed to be composed of stone and lime, and the admiral ordered a piece
of it to be brought away as a memorial or specimen. From thence we sailed
eastwards to Cobravo, the people of which place dwell near the rivers of
that coast; and because none of the natives came down to the strand, and
the wind blew fresh, he held on his course to five towns of great trade,
among which was Veragua, where the Indians said the gold was gathered and
the plates manufactured.
The next day he came to a town called Cubiga, where the Indians of Cariari
said that the trading country ended; this began at Carabora and extended
to Cubiga for 50 leagues along the coast.
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