Pedro Arias found two thousand young soldiers in excess of his number awaiting him at Seville; he likewise found a goodly number of avaricious old men, the majority of whom asked merely to be allowed to follow him at their own cost, without receiving the royal pay. Rather than overcrowd his ships and to spare his supplies, he refused to take any of the latter. Care was taken that no foreigner should mingle with the Spaniards, without the King's permission, and for this reason I am extremely astonished that a certain Venetian, Aloisió Cadamosto, who has written a history of the Portuguese, should write when mentioning the actions of the Spaniards, “We have done; we have seen; we have been"; when, as a matter of fact, he has neither done nor seen any more than any other Venetian. Cadamosto borrowed and plagiarised whatever he wrote, from the first three books of my first three Decades, that is to say, those which I addressed to the Cardinals Ascanio and Arcimboldo, who were living at the time when the events I described were happening. He evidently thought that my works would never be given to the public, and it may be that he came across them in the possession of some Venetian ambassador; for the most illustrious Senate of that Republic sent eminent men to the Court of the Catholic Kings, to some of whom I willingly showed my writings. I readily consented that copies should be taken. Be that as it may, this excellent Aloisió Cadamosto has sought to claim for himself what was the work of another. He has related the great deeds of the Portuguese, but whether he witnessed them, as he pretends, or has merely profited by the labour of another, I am unable to state. Vivat et ipse marte suo.

Nobody, who had not been enrolled by the royal agents, as a soldier, in the King's pay was allowed to go on board the vessels of Pedro Arias. In addition to these regulars there were some others, including one Francisco Cotta, a compatriot of mine, and thanks to a royal order

I obtained for him, he was allowed to go to the New World

But for this he would
Now let the Venetian,

as a volunteer with Pedro Arias. not have been permitted to depart. Cadamosto, go on and write that he has seen everything, while I, who for twenty-six years have lived, not without credit, at the Court of the Catholic King, have only been able by the greatest efforts to obtain authorisation for one foreigner to sail. Some Genoese, but very few, and that at the instance of the Admiral, son of the first discoverer of those countries, succeeded in obtaining a like authorisation; but to no one else was permission granted.

Pedro Arias sailed from Seville on the Guadalquivir to the sea, in the first days of the year 1514.' His departure took place under evil auspices, for such a furious storm broke over the fleet that two vessels were shattered to pieces, and the others were obliged to lighten themselves by throwing overboard some of their stores. The crews which survived returned to the coast of Spain, where the King's agents promptly came to their assistance and they were enabled again to set forth. The pilot of the flagship appointed by the King was Giovanni Vespucci, a Florentine, nephew of Amerigo Vespucci, who had inherited his uncle's great ability in the art of navigation and taking reckonings. We recently learned from Hispaniola that the crossing had been favourable, and a merchant ship, returning from the neighbouring islands, had encountered the fleet.

As Galeazzo Butrigario and Giovanni Accursi who, to please Your Holiness, constantly urge me on, are sending a courier who will deliver my ocean Nereids, however imperfect they may be, to Your Beatitude, I shall save time by leaving out many particulars and shall only mention what, in my opinion, is worthy to be recorded and which I have not reported at the time it happened. The wife of the captain Pedro Arias, by name Elizabeth The expedition sailed on April 14, 1514.

Bobadilla, is the grandniece on the father's side of the Marchioness Bobadilla de Moia, who opened the gates of Segovia to the friends of Isabella when the Portuguese were invading Castile, thus enabling them to hold out and later to take the offensive against the Portuguese; and still later to defeat them. King Henry, brother of Queen Isabella, had in fact taken possession of the treasures of that town. During her entire life, whether in time of war or in time of peace, the Marchioness de Moia displayed virile resolution, and it was due to her counsels that many great deeds were done in Castile. The wife of Pedro Arias, being niece of this marchioness, and inspired by courage equal to that of her aunt, spoke to her husband on his departure for those unknown lands, where he would encounter real perils, both on sea and on land, in the following terms:

"My dear husband, we have been united from our youth, as I think, for the purpose of living together and never being separated. Wherever destiny may lead you, be it on the tempestuous ocean or be it among the hardships that await you on land, I should be your companion. There is nothing I would more fear, nor any kind of death that might threaten me, which would not be more supportable than for me to live without you and separated by such an immense distance. I would rather die and even be eaten by fish in the sea or devoured on land by cannibals, than to consume myself in perpetual mourning and in unceasing sorrow, awaiting not my husband-but his letters. My determination is not sudden nor unconsidered; nor is it a woman's caprice that moves me to a well-weighed and merited decision. You must choose between two alternatives. Either you will kill me or you will grant my request. The children God has given us (there were eight of them, four boys and four girls) will not stop me for one moment. We will leave them their heritage

and their marriage portions, sufficient to enable them to live in conformity with their rank, and besides these, I have no other preoccupation.”

Upon hearing his wife speak such words from her virile heart, the husband knew that nothing could shake her resolution, and therefore, dared not refuse her request. She followed him as Ipsicratea, with flowing hair, followed Mithridates, for she loved her living husband as did the Carian Artemisia of Halicarnassia her dead Mausolus. We have learned that this Elizabeth Bobadilla brought up, as the proverb says, on soft feathers, has braved the dangers of the ocean with as much courage as her husband or the sailors who pass their lives at sea.

The following are some other particulars I have noted. In my First Decade I spoke, and not without some praise, of Vincent Yañez Pinzon, who had accompanied the Genoese, Christopher Columbus, the future Admiral, on his first voyage. Later, he undertook, by himself and at his own cost, another voyage, with but one ship for which he received the royal license. During the year preceding the departure of Hojeda and Nicuesa, Vincent Yañez undertook a third exploration, sailing from Hispaniola. His course was from east to west, following the southern shore of Cuba, which, owing to its length, many people at that time thought a continent; and he sailed round it. Many other persons have since reported that they have done the same.

Having demonstrated by this expedition that Cuba was indeed an island, Vincent Yañez sailed farther, and discovered other lands west of Cuba, but such as the Admiral had first touched. He kept to the left and, following the continental coasts towards the east, he crossed the gulfs of Veragua, Uraba, and Cachibacoa, touching finally with his ship at the region which, in our First Decade, we have explained was called Paria and Boca de la Sierpe. He sailed into an immense gulf noted by

Columbus as remarkable for its fresh waters, the abundance of fish, and the many islands it contained. It is situated about thirty miles east of Curiana. Midway in this course Cumana and Manacapana are passed; and it is at these places, not at Curiana, where the most pearls are found.

The kings of that country, who are called chiaconus just as they are called caciques in Hispaniola, sent messengers when they learned of the Spaniards' arrival, to ascertain who the unknown men might be, what they brought with them, and what they wanted. They launched upon the sea their barques dug out of tree trunks which are the same mentioned in our First Decade, and are called canoes in Hispaniola; but here the natives called them chicos. What most astonished them was to see the swelling sails of the ship, for they did not understand the use of sails; and if they did they would only require small ones, because of the narrowness of their barques. They approached the ship in great numbers and even ventured to shoot some arrows at the men who defended the ship's sides as though they were walls, hoping either to wound or frighten them.

The Spaniards fired their cannon, and the natives, alarmed by the detonation and by the slaughter that resulted from the well-aimed shot, took to flight in various directions. Pursuing them with a ship's boat, the Spaniards killed some and took many prisoners. The noise of the cannon and the report of what had happened so alarmed the caciques, who feared their villages would be robbed and their people massacred if the Spaniards landed to take vengeance, that they sent messengers to Vincent Yañez. As far as could be understood from their signs and gestures they sought peace; but our compatriots report that they did not understand a word of their language. The better to demonstrate their desire for peace, the natives made them beautiful presents, consisting of a quantity of gold,