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Nicuesa refused to listen to anything, declaring they must leave such an unfortunate country as quickly as possible. He therefore carried off everything that had been landed at the Gulf of Veragua, and ordered the ships to sail towards the east.
Lopez de Olano, a Catalonian, who was in command of one of the largest of the vessels, learned from the natives while he followed in the track of Nicuesa that his commander had left the Gulf of Veragua to the east. He therefore promptly turned about and sailed to meet the commander of another brigantine which had likewise got out of its course during the night.
The island of Sardinia, which was then under the Spanish Crown, was lost through the misconduct of the viceroy, the Duke of Veragua, and taken possession of by the troops of the Archduke. In the month of October, the island of Minorca also fell into the hands of the Archduke.
Christopherus Columbus spoke, tall, powerful, gaunt, white-headed, gray-eyed, trusted because he himself so trusted, suasive, filled with the power of his vision. His frame was growing old, but he himself stayed young. His voice never grew old, nor the gray-blue light from his eyes. Here was gold at last, and Veragua manifestly richer than all Hispaniola; aye, richer than Paria!
Reaching the top of a hill, the guides pointed out to the Adelantado a wide forest region, which they assured him, for a distance of twenty leagues, abounded with gold. It appeared, however, that by the directions of Quibian they had deceived him, and taken him to the mines of a neighbouring cacique, with whom he was at war, and that the real mines of Veragua were nearer and far more wealthy.
Suddenly we found Diego Mendez, bold enough and a great wanderer, doing the finding that Quibian's village up the river of Veragua contained many too, many young men and men in their prime, and that by day and night these continued to pour in. It had Diego Mendez thought much the aspect of a camp whose general steadily received reenforcement.
He fancied himself arrived at a fountain-head of riches, at one of the sources of the unbounded wealth of King Solomon. Josephus, in his work on the antiquities of the Jews, had expressed an opinion, that the gold for the building of the temple of Jerusalem had been procured from the mines of the Aurea Chersonesus. Columbus supposed the mines of Veragua to be the same.
"There were at the time," says the narrative, "belonging to Cartagena, Nombre de Dios, Rio Grande, Santa Marta, Rio de la Hacha, Venta Cruz, Veragua, Nicaragua, the Honduras, Jamaica, etc.; above 200 frigates; some of 120 tons, others but of 10 or 12 tons, but the most of 30 or 40 tons, which all had intercourse between Cartagena and Nombre de Dios.
During several days a Spaniard, who had left camp at night and lost his way amongst the swamps, ate such vegetation as is found in marshes. He finally succeeded in rejoining his companions, crawling along the ground and half dead. Such are the sufferings which these wretched colonists of Veragua endured.
This continual changing of the wind gave us so much trouble between Veragua and Porto Bello that the admiral named this Costo de Contrasses, or the Coast of Thwartings. Upon Thursday, being the feast of the Epiphany, 6th January, we cast anchor near a river called Yebra by the Indians, but which the admiral named Belem or Bethlem, because we came to it on the festival of the three kings.
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