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At the period now referred to, the President of Panama was the principal intendant or overseer of the civil department, and captain-general of all the troops in the viceroyalty of Peru. He had in his dependency Puerto Bello and Nata, two cities inhabited by the Spaniards, together with the towns of Cruces, Panama, Capira, and Veragua.
Carlos Nouel, a friend of Canon Billini, obtained permission to look in at the box and deciphered a rude inscription reading, "El Almirante D. Luis Colon, Duque de Veragua, Marques de " "The Admiral Don Louis Columbus, Duke of Veragua, Marquis of ." The last word was missing because of a hole in the corroded leaden plate, but was supposed to be "Jamaica."
He accordingly explored that coast, touching at Porto Bello, Nombre de Dios, Belen and Veragua, trading with the Indians. At Veragua he was informed of gold mines at no great distance, and sent his brother up the country in search of them. On his return, Don Bartholomew brought down a considerable quantity of gold, which he had procured from the natives for toys of little value.
Small golden beasts and birds, poorly carved but golden. They traded freely; we gathered gold. And there was more and more, they said, at Veragua, wherever that might be, and south and east it seemed to be. Veragua! We would go there. Again we hoisted sail and in our ships, now all unseaworthy, crept again in a bad wind along the coast of gold, Costa Rico. At last we saw many smokes from the land.
As if they could detect, from afar, the gold lust in the European eye, the poor creatures brandished their weapons to keep the strange-looking visitors from landing; but it was of no avail. Land they did, and traded seventeen gold disks for just three tinkly bells! The voyagers asked, of course, where the gold came from, and were told from Veragua, a little farther south.
After these adventures, the squadron made for "a place called Boco del Toro," "an opening between two islands between Chagres and Veragua," where "the general rendezvous of the fleet" had been arranged. The ships anchored here, with one or two new-comers, including a French ship commanded by a Captain Bournano, who had been raiding on the isthmus, "near the South Sea," but a few days before.
At that place they met their companions who had anchored their large vessels after receiving the leader's orders to proceed. Much disturbed by the possible consequences of Nicuesa's blunder, the ships' captains consulted together and decided to adopt the opinion of the captains of the brigantines which had coasted along very near to the shores of Veragua; they therefore sailed for that port.
Though it is less important, yet the Veragua gives its name to the country, since the ruler of that region, which is watered by both rivers, has his residence on the bank of the Veragua. Let us now relate the good and ill fortune they there encountered.
His fourth voyage had increased geographical knowledge by the discovery of the Cayman Islands, Martinique, Guanaja, the Limonare Islands, with the coasts of Honduras, Mosquito, Nicaragua, Veragua, Costa-Rica, Porto-Bello, and Panama, the Mulatas Islands, and the Gulf of Darien. During this, his last voyage across the ocean, Columbus was destined to be again tried by storms.
"Veragua," he says, "is not a little son which may be given to a stepmother to nurse. Of Espanola and Paria and all the other lands I never think without the tears falling from my eyes; I believe that the example of these ought to serve for the others."
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