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Remembers that David left three thousand quintals of gold from the Indies to Solomon for the decoration of the Temple; remembers that Josephus said it came from the Golden Chersonesus; decides that enough gold could never have been got from the mines of Hayna in Espanola; and concludes that the Ophir of Solomon must be here in Veragua and not there in Espanola.
He did not present himself at Court, but went to visit his family at Huelva; but the good news of his letter was accepted as an excuse for this oversight. No one was better pleased than the Admiral. "What did I tell you?" he says; "you see the mines of Hayna are paying already."
Brought in smaller measures were golden grains, knobs as large as filberts, golden collars and arm rings from the Indians of Bonao where flowed the Hayna. "Ophir!" said the Admiral. "Mayhap it is Ophir! Then have we passed somewhere the Gulf of Persia and Trapoban!" With that gold he sailed, he and Aguado and two small crowded ships. With him he carried Caonabo. It was early March in 1496.
During this time the island began to fulfil the hopes of Columbus, who had prophesied that in three years the crown would derive from it a revenue of sixty millions. Gold was obtained in abundance from the best worked mines; a slave had dug up on the banks of the Hayna, a mass, equal in weight to 3600 golden crowns; it was easy to foresee that the new colonies would yield incalculable riches.
Columbus ordered two fortresses to be erected for the protection of the miners, one on the boundary of the province of Cibao, the other upon the banks of the River Hayna. Having taken this precaution, he set out for Europe, full of eagerness to justify himself. The two caravels sailed from the harbour of St. Isabella on the 10th of March, 1496.
After the distribution of the Indians among the colonists, so much gold was gathered that it was melted four times every year; twice at the town of Buena Ventura on the river Hayna, eight leagues from St Domingo, where the gold brought from the old and new mines was cast into ingots; and twice a-year at the city of de la Vega, or the Conception, to which the gold from Cibao and the neighbouring districts was brought for the same purpose.
When the Adelantado assumed the command on the departure of the admiral for Spain in March, 1496, his first step, in compliance with the instructions he had received, was to proceed to the valley on the south side of the island, in which the gold mine of Hayna was situated, and to build a fort, which he named "San Cristoval."
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