TO THE SAME CARDINAL LUDOVICO D'ARAGON
I have presented to you this immense and hitherto unknown ocean which
the Admiral, Christopher Columbus, discovered, under the auspices of
our sovereigns, in the guise of a necklace of gold, although, owing to
the poor skill of the artisan, it is but poorly executed. Yet I have
judged it worthy, Most Illustrious Prince, of your splendour. Accept
now a necklace of pearls which, suspended from the former, will
ornament your breast.
Some of the Admiral's ship-captains who had made a study of the
different wind-currents sought the royal permission to prosecute
discoveries at their own expense,[1] proposing to relinquish to the
Crown its due, that is to say, one fifth of the profits. The most
fortunate of these adventurers was a certain Pedro Alonzo Nuñez,[2]
who sailed towards the south; and it is of his expedition that I will
first write. To come at once to the essential details of this voyage,
this Nuñez had but one ship, fitted out at his expense, though some
people claimed that he was helped.[3] The royal edict forbade him to
anchor within fifty leagues of any place discovered by the Admiral.
He sailed towards Paria, where, as I have said, Columbus found both
native men and women wearing bracelets and necklaces of pearls. In
obedience to the royal decree he coasted along this shore, leaving
behind him the provinces of Cumana and Manacapana, and thus arrived
at a country called by its inhabitants Curiana, where he discovered a
harbour quite similar to that of Cadiz.
[Note 1: See Navarrete, tom, ii., 1867; Gomara, _Historia
General_, p. 50.]
[Note 2: Also called Niño; he had sailed with Columbus on his
first two voyages. Oviedo, _op. cit_., xix., I, also describes this
expedition.]
[Note 3: Nuñez was poor and only found assistance from a merchant
of Seville called Guerro, on condition that the latter's brother,
Christobal, should command the one ship his loan sufficed to provide.
This vessel was only fifty tons burden, and carried a crew of
thirty-three persons.]
Upon entering this harbour he found a number of houses scattered along
the banks, but when he landed it was discovered to be a group of eight
houses; about fifty men, led by their chief, promptly came from a
populous village only three miles distant. These men, who were naked,
invited Alonzo Nuñez to land on their coast, and he consented. He
distributed some needles, bracelets, rings, glass pearls, and other
pedlar's trifles amongst them, and in less than an hour he obtained
from them in exchange fifteen ounces of the pearls they wore on their
necks and arms. The natives embraced Nuñez affectionately, insisting
more and more that he should come to their village, where they
promised to give him any amount of pearls he might desire. The next
day at dawn the ship drew near to the village and anchored. The entire
population assembled and begged the men to land, but Nuñez, seeing
that they were very numerous and considering that he had only thirty
men, did not venture to trust himself to them. He made them understand
by signs and gestures that they should come to the ship in barques
and canoes. These barques, like the others, are dug out of a single
tree-trunk, but are less well shaped and less easy to handle than
those used by the cannibals and the natives of Hispaniola. They are
called _gallitas_. The natives all brought strings of pearls, which
are called _tenoras_, and showed themselves desirous of Spanish
merchandise.
They are amiable men; simple, innocent, and hospitable, as was made
clear after twenty days of intercourse with them. The Spaniards very
soon ceased to fear to enter their houses, which are built of wood
covered with palm leaves. Their principal food is the meat of the
shellfish from which they extract pearls, and their shores abound
with such. They likewise eat the flesh of wild animals, for deer,
wild-boar, rabbits whose hair and colour resemble our hares, doves,
and turtle-doves exist in their country. The women keep ducks and
geese about the houses, just as ours do; peacocks fly about in the
woods, but their colours are not so rich or so varied as ours and the
male bird differs little from the female. Amongst the undergrowth
in the swamps, pheasants are from time to time seen. The people of
Curiana are skilful hunters and generally with one single arrow shot
they kill beasts or birds at which they aim. The Spaniards spent
several days amongst the abundance of the country. They traded four
needles for a peacock, only two for a pheasant, and one for a dove or
a turtle-dove. The same, or a glass bead, was given for a goose.
In making their offers and bargaining and disputing, the natives
conducted their commercial affairs just about the same as do our women
when they are arguing with pedlars. As they wore no clothes, the
natives were puzzled to know the use of needles, but when the
Spaniards satisfied their naive curiosity by showing them that needles
were useful for getting thorns from beneath the skin, and for cleaning
the teeth, they conceived a great opinion of them. Another thing which
pleased them even more was the colour and sound of hawk-bells, which
they were ready to buy at good prices.
From the native houses the roaring of large animals[4] was audible
amidst the dense and lofty forest trees, but these animals are not
fierce, for, although the natives constantly wander through the
woods with no other weapons than their bows and arrows, there is no
recollection of any one being killed by these beasts. They brought the
Spaniards as many deer and wild-boar, slain with their arrows, as the
latter desired. They did not possess cattle or goats or sheep, and
they ate bread made of roots and bread made of grain the same as the
islanders of Hispaniola. Their hair is black, thick, half curly, and
long. They try to spoil the whiteness of their teeth, for almost the
entire day they chew a herb which blackens them, and when they spit it
out, they wash their mouth. It is the women who labour in the fields
rather than the men, the latter spending their time in hunting,
fighting, or leading dances and games.
[Note 4: Supposed to have been tapirs, animals unknown in Europe.]
Pitchers, cups with handles, and pots are their earthenware utensils,
which they procure from elsewhere, for they frequently hold markets,
which all the neighbouring tribes attend, each bringing the products
of his country to be exchanged for those of other places. In fact,
there is nobody who is not delighted to obtain what is not to be had
at home, because the love of novelty is an essential sentiment
of human nature. They hang little birds and other small animals,
artistically worked in base gold,[5] to their pearls. These trinkets
they obtain by trade, and the metal resembles the German gold used for
coining florins.
[Note 5: A kind of alloyed gold called by the natives _guanin_;
the Spaniards were often deceived by its glitter.]
The men either carry their private parts enclosed in a little gourd
which has been opened at the back, like our cod-piece, or they use a
seashell. The gourd hangs from a cord tied round the waist.[6] The
presence of the animals above mentioned, and many other indications
not found in any of the islands, afford evidence that this land is a
continent. The most conclusive proof[7] seems to be that the Spaniards
followed the coast of Paria for a distance of about three thousand
miles always in a westerly direction, but without discovering any
end to it. When asked whence they procured their gold, the people of
Curiana answered that it came from a country called Cauchieta situated
about six suns distant (which means six days) to the west, and that it
was the artisans of that region who worked the gold into the form in
which they saw it. The Spaniards sailed towards Cauchieta and anchored
there near the shore on the calends of November, 1500. The natives
fearlessly approached and brought them gold, which in its rough state
is not valued amongst them. The people also wore pearls round their
throats; but these came from Curiana, where they had been obtained in
exchange for gold, and none of them wanted to part with anything they
had obtained by trade. That is to say the people of Curiana kept their
gold, and the people of Cauchieta their pearls, so that very little
gold was obtained at Cauchieta.[8] The Spaniards brought away some
very pretty monkeys and a number of parrots of varied colours, from
that country.
[Note 6: The text continues: _alibi in eo tractu intra vaginam
mentularemque nervum reducunt, funiculoque præputium alligant_.]
[Note 7: Navarrete, iii., 14.]
[Note 8: _Auri tamen parum apud Cauchietenses: lectum reperere_
meaning, doubtless, that they traded away most of their gold for
pearls.]
The temperature in the month of November was delicious, without a sign
of cold. Each evening the stars which mark the north pole disappeared,
so near is that region to the equator; but it was not possible to
calculate precisely the polar degrees. The natives are sensible and
not suspicious, and some of the people of Curiana passed the entire
night in company with our men, coming out in their barques to join
them. Pearls they call _corixas_. They are jealous, and when strangers
visit them, they make their women withdraw behind the house, from
whence the latter examine the guests as though they were prodigies.
Cotton is plentiful and grows wild in Cauchieta, just as shrubs do in
our forests, and of this they make trousers which they wear.
Continuing their course along the same coast, the Spaniards suddenly
encountered about two thousand men armed according to the fashion of
the country, who prevented them from landing. They were so barbarous
and ferocious that it was impossible to establish the smallest
relations with them or to effect any trade; so, as our men were
satisfied with the pearls they had procured, they returned by the
same course to Curiana, where they remained for another twenty days
bountifully supplied with provisions.
It seems to me neither out of place nor useless to this history, to
here narrate what happened when they arrived within sight of the
coasts of Paria. They encountered by chance a squadron of eighteen
canoes full of cannibals engaged in a man-hunt: this was near the Boca
de la Sierpe and the strait leading to the gulf of Paria, which I have
before described. The cannibals unconcernedly approached the ship,
surrounding it, and shooting flights of arrows and javelins at our
men. The Spaniards replied by a cannon shot, which promptly scattered
them. In pursuing them, the ship's boat came up with one of their
canoes, but was able to capture only a single cannibal and a bound
prisoner, the others having all escaped by swimming. This prisoner
burst into tears, and by his gestures and rolling his eyes, gave it
to be understood that six of his companions had been cruelly
disembowelled, cut into pieces, and devoured by those monsters, and
that the same fate awaited him on the morrow. They made him a present
of the cannibal, upon whom he immediately threw himself, gnashing his
teeth and belabouring him with blows of a stick and his fists and with
kicks, for he believed that the death of his companions would not be
sufficiently avenged till he beheld the cannibal insensible and beaten
black and blue. When questioned as to the customs and usages of the
cannibals when they made expeditions to other countries, he said
they always carried with them, wherever they went, sticks prepared
beforehand which they planted in the ground at the place of their
encampment, and beneath whose shelter they passed the night.
Hanging over the door of one of the chieftains in Curiana, the
Spaniards found the head of a cannibal, which was regarded as a sort
of standard or helmet captured from the enemy, and constituted a great
honour for this chief.
There is a district on the coast of Paria, called Haraia, which is
remarkable for a peculiar kind of salt found there. It is a vast plain
over which the waves of the sea are driven in heavy weather and
when the waves subside and the sun comes out, the pools of water
crystallise into masses of the whitest salt, in sufficient quantity
for the natives to load all the ships that sail, did they arrive
before it rained. The first rainfall melts the salt, which is then
absorbed by the sands and thus returns through fissures in the earth,
to the sea which produces it. Others pretend that this plain is not
inundated by the sea, but that it possesses saline springs, more
bitter than sea water, which send forth their waters when the tempest
rages. The natives set great store on these salines, and they not
only use the salt in the same way that we do, but they mould it into
brick-shaped forms and trade it to foreigners for articles which they
do not themselves possess.
The bodies of the chiefs of the country are laid upon biers under
which a slow fire is lighted which consumes the flesh, little by
little, but leaves the bones and the skin intact. These dried bodies
are then piously preserved, as though they were their _penates_. The
Spaniards say that in one district they saw a man being thus dried for
preservation and in another a woman.
When, on the eighth day of the ides of February, the Spaniards were
ready to leave the country of Curiana, they found they had ninety-six
pounds of pearls at eight ounces to the pound, which they had obtained
at an average price of five cents.
Although their return voyage was shorter than when they came from
Hispaniola, it lasted sixty-one days, because continual currents
running from east to west not only retarded their speed, but sometimes
completely stopped the ship. Finally they arrived, loaded with pearls
like other people come loaded with straw. The commander, Pedro Alonzo
Nuñez, concealed an important quantity of valuable pearls, and thus
cheated the royal revenues, to which a fifth of all merchandise
belongs.[9] His fellows denounced him, and Fernando de Vega, a learned
statesman, who was Governor of Galicia where they landed, arrested
him, and he was held in prison for a long time, but was finally
released; and even to this day he still claims they robbed him of his
share of the pearls. Many of these stones are as large as nuts, and
resemble oriental pearls, but as they are badly pierced, they are less
valuable.
[Note 9: Navarrete, iii., 78. The treasure was sold in August,
1501, and the proceeds divided among the sailors.]
One day, when lunching with the illustrious Duke of Medina-Sidonia in
Seville, I saw one of these pearls which had been presented to him. It
weighed more than a hundred ounces, and I was charmed by its beauty
and brilliancy. Some people claim that Nuñez did not find these pearls
at Curiana, which is more than one hundred and twenty leagues distant
from Boca de la Sierpe, but in the little districts of Cumana and
Manacapana near by the Boca and the island of Margarita. They declare
that Curiana is not rich in pearls. This question has not been
decided; so let us treat of another subject. You now perceive what, in
the course of years, may be the value of this newly discovered country
and western coasts, since after a superficial exploration they have
yielded such evidences of wealth.