Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/585

Rh, was found to be exceedingly rich in gold. That in the possession of the natives, however, was usually found wrought into breastplates, and utensils of various sorts. Such as was found in a native state must have been quite fine, as Herrera mentions several pieces of extraordinary size found by Badajoz, which weighed two Castellanos, While in this vicinity Badajoz entered the province of a cacique named Cutará, but whom the Spaniards called Paris. The chieftain fled at their approach, but upon being threatened with the bloodhounds, he sent them, in four baskets, gold to the value of 50,000 pesos. The ungrateful Spaniards, flushed with their success, entered his village by night and secured nearly as much more. This base treachery so exasperated the savages that they attacked Badajoz with an army of 4,000 warriors, killed seventy of his men, and captured all the gold which he had taken, amounting to over 160,000 Castellanos, equivalent to at least one million of dollars at the present time. Subsequently he visited the island of Tabogá, where he obtained a small quantity of gold. He then returned to Antigua.

"When I was superintendent of the mint in Castilla del Oro," says Oviedo, "I have often melted gold from Veragua, and am well convinced of the existence of rich mines in that province." The colonists at Natá established a considerable traffic with the natives of Veragua, sending thither their Indian servants with cotton cloth and hammocks to exchange for gold.

The Pearl Islands were first visited by Gaspar de Morales and Francisco Pizarro. After the cacique was pacified by the arms of the Spaniards, he took Morales up into a tower which stood upon the roof of his house, whence an unbroken view was presented, and pointing to the islands on either side said, "Behold the infinite sea, extending even beyond the sunbeams; behold the islands, all are subject to my sway. They contain but little gold; but the deep places in