Without Making Any Stay Here,
The Admiral Proceeded On Till He Put Into Porto Bello, To Which He Gave
That Name Because It Is Large, Well Peopled, And Encompassed By A Finely
Cultivated Country.
He entered this place on the 2d of November, passing
between two small islands within which ships may lie close to the shore,
and can turn it out if they have occasion.
The country about that harbour
and higher up is by no means rough, but cultivated and full of houses a
stone throw or a bow-shot only from each other, and forms the finest
landscape that can be imagined. We continued there seven days on account
of rain and bad weather, and canoes came constantly to the ships from all
the country round to trade with provisions and bottoms of fine spun cotton,
which they gave in exchange for points and pins and other trifles.
On Wednesday the ninth of November we sailed from Porto Bello eight
leagues to the eastwards, but were driven back four leagues next day by
stress of weather, and put in among some islands near the continent where
the town of Nombre de Dios now stands; and because all these small islands
were full of grain, the admiral called this place Puerto de Bastimentos,
or Port of Provisions. While here one of our boats pursued a canoe, and
the Indians imagining our men would do them some harm, and perceiving the
boat within less than a stones throw of them, they leapt into the sea to
swim away, which they all effected; for though the boat rowed hard it
could not overtake any of them, or if it did come up with one he would
dive like a duck and come up again a bow-shot or two distant.
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