Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/580

560 the thumb and first finger together, "and taken from shell-fish as large as that," pointing to a buckler which hung from the arm of a Spaniard. Vasco Nuñez thereupon called the largest island Isla Rica, and to the archipelago he gave the name of the Pearl Islands. Isla Rica later became known as the island of San Miguel.

From the town of Chiapes Balboa crossed a great river and entered the province of Cocura, where he obtained gold to the value of six hundred and fifty pesos. He then crossed the water to an arm of the gulf of San Miguel, later known as the Rio Savana, and entered a province belonging to a cacique named Tumaco, who, besides gold valued at 614 pesos, brought him a bowl filled with magnificent pearls, 240 of which were of extraordinary size and beauty.

Vasco Nuñez and his companions were by this time fully aware of the immense riches of that country in gold, for, although the natives placed but little value upon it, merely gathering what they could easily pick up from the surface of the' ground, yet everywhere they found it among the Indians, in larger or smaller quantities, usually wrought into various shapes. But here was proof given them, that this southern sea contained pearls in no less profusion than its shores yielded gold, and a knowledge of this fact greatly enhanced the value of their discovery. "Our men marvelled greatly," says Peter Martyr, "at the size and beauty of these pearls, although they were not perfectly white, because they can not take them out of the sea mussels, except they first roast them, that they may the easier open themselves; and also that the fish may have the better taste. For they esteem it a delicate and princely dish, which they prize more highly than the pearls themselves."

When the chief Tumaco beheld the eagerness with which the Spaniards regarded his pearls, to show them the small value which he placed upon these baubles, and how easily they could be obtained, he sent some