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Pursuing his course, Pizarro encountered by chance the bachelor Enciso between the bay of Carthagena and the country called Cuchibacoa, which lies at the mouth of the river the Spaniards have named Boiugatti or cathouse, because it was there they first saw a cat, and boiu means house in the language of Hispaniola.
The cacique promptly declared that he wished to be called El Comendador; and he it was who had given hospitality to Enciso, when he landed, and had supplied all his wants. According to Enciso, now is the time, Most Holy Father from whom we receive our religion and our beliefs, to preach to the islanders.
Possibly he was wandering in unknown places like Enciso and other victims of wrecks; therefore they should not rest until they had discovered whether he and his associates still lived. He came to Hispaniola in 1500, where he suffered extreme poverty.
Martin Fernandez Enciso, a bachelor-at-law, addressed to the emperor a learned dissertation intended to refute the doctrine that the Indians were born free, maintaining that the right of conquest of the New World granted by the Pope necessarily included the right to reduce the inhabitants to slavery.
In this situation, he dispatched one of his ships under Enciso to Hispaniola, with orders to bring him as large a reinforcement of men as possible, and immediately set to work in constructing entrenchments to secure his remaining people against the natives.
In response to the petition of the Comendador they left with him a Spaniard, who volunteered for the purpose of teaching the cacique's subjects and their neighbours the Angelic Salutation, their idea being that the more words of the prayer to the Virgin they knew, the better disposed she would be to them. Enciso agreed, after which he resumed his course to Hispaniola, which was not far distant.
Others joined him in entreaties, and Enciso at length softened and spared him his life. He was to pay bitterly for his kindness before many days. The expedition had its adventures on the seas, ending in a wreck, and when San Sebastian was reached Ojeda was not to be found, and the settlement was a ruin.
The Spaniards had not been long here when they became tired with Enciso, and they refused to obey him, and sent him off in a ship to Spain. Upon his departure, Balboa took the command. In one of his expeditions into the interior parts of the country in search of gold, he first heard of a sea to the west, as yet unknown to Europeans.
He first sent to Hispaniola for an additional number of soldiers, to assist him in the perilous adventure, but instead of receiving these, the only news that reached him by the return of his messengers was, that he would most probably have the command of Darien taken from him, and be punished for assisting to dispossess Enciso. This news made him determine no longer to delay his departure.
They reach me not only from Enciso, but from a number of other most trustworthy personages. I have done this, that Your Beatitude might be convinced of the docility of this race, and the ease with which they might be instructed in the ceremonies of our religion.
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