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"You have all the appearance of a treasure seeker returned from a successful expedition," I exclaimed. "Or rather," interrupted Antonio, "of one who has ceased to trade on his own bottom, and now goes seeking treasures at the cost and expense of others." I questioned the Swiss minutely concerning his adventures since I last saw him, when I left him at Oviedo to pursue my route to Santander.
The site for his first settlement, chosen by Ponce, was a low hill in the center of a small plain surrounded by hills, at the distance of a league from the sea, the whole space between being a swamp, "which," says Oviedo, "made the transport of supplies very difficult." Here the captain commenced the construction of a fortified house and chapel, or hermitage, and called the place Capárra.
Oviedo, who is loud in extolling the justice, and devotion, and charity, and meekness of Ovando, and his kind treatment of the Indians; and who visited the province of Xaragua a few years afterwards, records several of the preceding circumstances; especially the cold-blooded game of quoits played by the governor on the verge of such a horrible scene, and the burning of the caciques, to the number, he says, of more than forty.
They also said that the Indians had slain Orantes, Valdivieso, Huelva, Esquibel, and Mendez ; but that the three who still lived were very ill used, especially by the boys, who kicked, beat, and abused them for their amusement. At this time the Indians treated Cabeza and Oviedo very ill, so that Oviedo went back along with some of the natives, but Cabeza stayed and they two never met more.
If all that has been said above concerning so many imaginary islands and continents appears to be mere fable and folly, how much more reason have we to consider that as false which Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo conceits in his Natural History of the Indies, "That there was another discoverer of this navigation of the ocean, and that the Spaniards held anciently the dominion of these lands."
He is a fountain from which others draw, and from which, with a little precaution, they may draw securely. He died in Valladolid, in 1526. No. Oviedo. Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes, commonly known as Oviedo, was born in Madrid in 1478, and died in Valladolid in 1557, aged seventy-nine years.
The Indian lets go the line, to which a buoy is attached to mark the course the remora has taken, and follows in his canoe until he thinks the game is exhausted; he then draws it gradually in, the remora still adhering to his prey. Oviedo says, "I have known a turtle caught by this method, of a bulk and weight which no single man could support."
From Marco Polo to Scott's Journal the literature of geographical discovery abounds with classics, and standards of comparison suggest themselves in abundance to the critic of Champlain's Voyages. Most naturally, of course, one turns to the records of American exploration in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to Ramusio, Oviedo, Peter Martyr, Hakluyt, and Purchas.
The news spread like wildfire, and from that day the Indians were in open rebellion and began to take the offensive, shooting their arrows and otherwise molesting every Spaniard they happened to meet alone or off his guard. The following episode related by Oviedo illustrates the mental disposition of the natives of Boriquén at this period.
The Drama. 6. Provencal Literature in Spain. 7. The Influence of Italian Literature in Spain. 8. The Cancioneros and Prose Writing. 9. The Inquisition. The Effect of Intolerance on Letters. 2. Influence of Italy on Spanish Literature; Boscan, Garcilasso de la Vega, Diego de Mendoza. 3. History; Cortez, Gomara, Oviedo, Las Casas. 4. The Drama, Rueda, Lope de Vega, Calderon de la Barca. 5.
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