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Updated: June 29, 2025
.S. .S.A.S. XMY Xpo FERENS." Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to his Son, DON DIEGO, December 21, 1504. "VERY DEAR SON, The Lord Adelantado and your brother and Carbajal left here sixteen days ago to go to the Court. They have not written me since. Don Ferdinand carried 150 ducats. He must spend what is necessary, and he carries a letter, that the merchants may furnish you with money.
Indeed, it so happened, that several of those who had been most forward to abandon the cause of Pizarro survived their commander but a short time. The gallant Centeno, and the Licentiate Carbajal, who deserted him near Lima, and bore the royal standard on the field of Xaquixaguana, both died within a year after Pizarro.
"VERY DEAR SON, It is now eight days since your uncle and your brother and Carbajal left here together, to kiss the royal hands of his Highness, and to give an account of the voyage, and also to aid you in the negotiation of whatever may prove to be necessary there. "Don Ferdinand took from here 150 ducats to be expended at his discretion.
He knew familiarly every mountain pass, and, such were the sagacity and the resources displayed in his roving expeditions, that he was vulgarly believed to be attended by a familiar.11 With a character so extraordinary, with powers prolonged so far beyond the usual term of humanity, and passions so fierce in one tottering on the verge of the grave, it was not surprising that many fabulous stories should be eagerly circulated respecting him, and that Carbajal should be clothed with mysterious terrors as a sort of supernatural being, the demon of the Andes!
"VERY DEAR SON, I wrote you at length and sent it by Don Ferdinand, who left to go yonder twenty-three days ago to-day, with the Lord Adelantado and Carbajal, from whom I have since heard nothing.
Such was the state of affairs in Cuzco, when Pizarro's soldiers returned with the tidings, that a detachment of the enemy had crossed the Apurimac, and were busy in reestablishing the bridge. Carbajal saw at once the absolute necessity of maintaining this pass. "It is my affair," he said; "I claim to be employed on this service.
The fellow was already very nearly asleep, as it happened, and he was, moreover, very thirsty, consequently Jim's offer was accepted with almost indecent haste; as a matter of fact, Carbajal put the bottle to his lips the moment that Jim held it out to him, and he only removed it when it was nearly all gone.
This, Carbajal requited by sparing his life on two occasions, but on the second coolly remarked, "No man has a right to a brace of lives; and if you fall into my hands a third time, God only can grant you another." Happily, Pizarro did not find occasion to put this menace to the test.
Carbajal will very well know how this must be done. Let him see this letter. The 150 ducats which Luis de Soria sent you when I came are paid according to his desire. "I wrote you at length and sent the letter by Don Ferdinand, also a memorandum. Carbajal will understand me very well if he sees this letter, and every one else as well, as it is very clear.
"For to have begun the history in Peru," he says, "would have alone been enough to put my life in jeopardy; since a certain commander, named Francisco de Carbajal, threatened to take vengeance on any one who should be so rash as to attempt the relation of his exploits, -far less deserving, as they were, to be placed on record, than to be consigned to eternal oblivion."
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