Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/574

554 Gold and godliness were the two great engines which drove on the Spaniards to overrun and occupy the lands discovered by Columbus. The dissolute indulgence of these passions, so opposite, and yet in them so strangely blended, resulted not alone in the extermination of the Americans, but reacting upon themselves, dimmed the ancient glory of Spain, and sent rottenness to the bones of the then most powerful nation of Europe. "In that climate," says Gomara, "as in Peru the people turn yellow. It may be that the desire for gold which fills their hearts shines forth in their faces." Some claim to have computed that during the first century after the conquest of Peru there went from the New World to Spain silver enough to make a bridge across the Atlantic, a yard and a half wide, and two inches thick, or that brought together in a heap it would overtop the mountains of Potosí!

In Española, immediately after the discovery of America, one piece of gold was found weighing 3,200 Castellanos. Miners obtained from six to 250 castellanos a day. In the ships which perished with Bobadilla, gold to the value of 200,000 Castellanos was lost. In the year 1501 Rodrigo de Bastidas and Juan de la Cosa exchanged with the natives of Darien hawksbells and glass beads for pearls and the golden ornaments of the naked savages. In 1502 Columbus had no sooner landed upon the coast of Honduras than