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Updated: June 17, 2025
The Spaniards remained several days in that place, during which they baptised the cacique Comogre, giving him the name of Charles, after the Spanish prince, and likewise all his family with him. They then rejoined their companions at Darien, promising, however, to send the soldiers his son desired to assist him in crossing the sierra and reaching the southern ocean.
According to the opinion of Vasco himself, the first thing to be done was to build forts in the territories of Comogre, Pochorrosa, and Tumanama, which would later form centres of colonisation. A hidalgo of Cordova, Captain Juan Ayora, was chosen to carry out this plan, for which purpose he was given four hundred men, four caravels, and a small boat.
When peace was concluded, the Spaniards repaired to the palace of Comogre, which lies some thirty leagues distant from Darien, but not in a direct line, for the intervening mountains obliged them to make long detours. Comogre had seven sons from different women, all handsome children or young men, wearing no clothes.
He remained, nevertheless, yet a few days with the caciques; and so strict was the friendship he had contracted with them that they and their families were baptized, Careta taking in baptism the name of Fernando, and Comogre that of Carlos.
Upon their slopes rises the Comogre River which, after watering this plain, runs through a mountainous country, gathering to itself tributaries from all the valleys and finally emptying into the South Sea. It is distant about seventy leagues to the west of Darien.
The provisions Valdivia brought sufficed only for the needs of the moment, and within a few days after his arrival the miseries of famine once more began, chiefly because a waterspout burst from the mountain top, accompanied by terrible lightnings and thunders, and washed down such an amount of rubbish that the harvests, planted in the month of September before the campaign against the cacique Comogre began, were either swept away or completely buried.
The eldest son of Comogre, the wise youth, who was present, struck the scales with his fist and scattered the gold in all directions, and calling our men's attention he spoke in choice language as follows: "What thing then is this, Christians? Is it possible that you set a high value upon such a small quantity of gold?
Others, who still had some strength, despite their weak legs, were supported under the armpits and carried by the natives. They finally arrived in the country of our friend Comogre, of whom I have lengthily spoken above. The old man was dead and had been succeeded by that son whose wisdom we have praised. This young man had been baptised, and was called Carlos.
The same envoy would go on to Spain where he would first explain to the Admiral and his officers and afterwards to the King, all that had happened, and would seek to persuade his Majesty to send the thousand soldiers the son of Comogre had declared would be necessary for the expedition across the mountains to the South Sea.
Careta had for a neighbor a cacique called by some Comogre, by others Panquiaco, chief of about ten thousand Indians, among whom were three thousand warriors.
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