The few natives which inhabited it, fed on the pearl oysters, and
had to bring their water in canoes from the continent of Cumana, seven
leagues distant, giving seed pearls in payment to those who brought it
over.
They had their wood from the isle of Margarita, which almost
surrounds Cubagua from east to north-west, at the distance of a league. To
the south is Cape Araya on the continent, near which there are extensive
salines or salt ponds. Cubagua has a good harbour on the northern shore,
which is sheltered by the opposite island of Margarita. There was at first
such abundance of pearl oysters, that at one time the royal fifth amounted
to 15,000 ducats yearly. The oysters are brought up from the bottom by
divers, who stay under water as long as they can hold in their breath,
pulling the shells from the places to which they stick. Besides this place
there are pearls for above 400 leagues along this coast, all the way from
Cape de La Vela to the gulf of Paria; for Admiral Christopher Columbus,
besides Cubagua, which he named the Island of Pearls, found them all along
the coast of Paria and Cumana, at Maracapana, Puerto Flechado, and
Curiana, which last is near Venezuela.
SECTION V.
Alonzo de Hojeda and Diego de Nicuessa are commissioned to make
Discoveries and Settlements in the New World, with an account of the
adventures and misfortunes of Hojeda.
Among the adventurers who petitioned the court of Spain for licenses to
make discoveries, was Alonzo de Hojeda, a brave man, but very poor, who
had spent all he had hitherto gained; but John de la Cosa, who had been
his pilot and had saved money, offered to assist him with his life and
fortune. They got the promise of a grant of all that had been discovered
on the continent; but one Diego Nicuessa interposed, and being a richer
man, with better interest, he stopped their grant and procured half of it
to himself. Hojeda and Cosa got a grant of all the country from Cape De
la Vela to the gulf of Uraba, now called the Gulf of Darien, the
country appropriated to them being called New Andalusia; while Nicuessa
received the grant of all the country from the before-mentioned gulf to
Cape Garcias a Dios, under the name of Castilla del Oro, or Golden
Castile. In neither of these grants was any notice taken of the admiral,
to whom, of right, all these countries belonged, as having being
discovered by his father. Nicuessa got likewise a grant of the island of
Jamaica; but the admiral being in the West Indies secured that to himself.
Hojeda fitted out a ship and a brigantine, and Nicuessa two brigantines,
with which vessels they sailed together to St Domingo, where they
quarrelled about their respective rights, and their disputes were adjusted
with much difficulty. These were at length settled, and they both
proceeded for their respective governments, or rather to settle the
colonies of which these were to be composed; but the disputes had occupied
so much time that it was towards the end of 1510 before either of them
left Hispaniola.
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