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While Pacra was still alive they asked him where his people obtained gold, but neither by persuasion nor threats nor tortures could they drag this secret from him.
His morals were on a par with his bearing and physiognomy. He had carried off the daughters of four neighbouring caciques to satisfy his brutal passions. The neighbouring chiefs, regarding Vasco as a supreme judge or a Hercules, a redresser of injuries, complained of the debaucheries and the crimes of Pacra, begging that he should be punished by death.
Let us now return to Pacra, from whom we have somewhat wandered. Vasco then tried threats, and the cacique finally decided to come in, accompanied by three others. Vasco writes that he was deformed, and so dirty and hideous that nothing more abominable could be imagined. Nature confined herself to giving him a human form, but he is a brute beast, savage and monstrous.
The rigorous treatment of Pacra secured Vasco the friendship of the neighbouring caciques, and when he sent for the sick, whom he had left behind to join him, a cacique, called Bononiama, whose country the route directly traversed, received them kindly and gave them twenty pounds of wrought gold and an abundance of provisions.
The cacique was taken prisoner and with him his entire Sardanapalian court. As soon as he was found, the men of Pochorroso and the neighbouring caciques overwhelmed him with insults, for Tumanama was no less detested by the neighbouring caciques than that Pacra whom we have mentioned in describing the expedition to the south sea.
Led by this young man, they entered the territory of a chief called Pacra, who was an atrocious tyrant. Whether frightened because conscious of his crimes, or whether he felt himself powerless, Pacra fled. During this month of November the Spaniards suffered greatly from the heat and from the torments of thirst, for very little water is found in that mountainous region.
Nor would he leave them until he had accompanied them from his residence to that of Pacra, as though they had been confided to his fidelity. He spoke thus to Vasco: "Here are your companions in arms, Most Illustrious Warrior; just as they came to me, so do I bring them to you.
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