king Careta, whose friendship he gained and whose
daughter he married. He went by sea to his father-in-law's territory, and
taking with him some of the King's Indians he moved into the territory of
the cacique Ponca, an enemy of Careta.

Quintana, whose account follows, is the favorite historian of this
expedition. His _Lives of Celebrated Spaniards_ is regarded as one of the
classics of Spanish prose literature.

Ponca, not daring to await the coming of the allies, took refuge in the
mountains, abandoning his land to the ravage and ruin prepared for it by
the Indians and Spaniards. Balboa, however, did not pursue his success
further at present; leaving to the future the conquest, or, as he termed
it, the "pacification" of the interior, he returned to the coast, where
it was more for the advantage, security, and subsistence of the colony to
have his friends or his vassals stationed.

Careta had for a neighbor a cacique called by some Comogre, by others
Panquiaco, chief of about ten thousand Indians, among whom were three
thousand warriors. Having heard of the valor and enterprise of the
Castilians, this chief desired to enter into treaty and friendship with
them; and a principal Indian, a dependent of Careta, having presented
himself as the agent in this friendly overture, Vasco Nunez, anxious
to profit by the opportunity of securing such an ally, went with his
followers to visit Comogre. No sooner was the cacique apprised of this
visit than he sailed forth at the head of his principal vassals, and his
seven sons, all still youths and the offspring of different wives, to
receive the Spaniards. Great was the courtesy and kindness with which he
treated his guests, who were lodged in different houses in the town, and
provided with victuals in abundance, and with men and women to serve
them. What chiefly attracted their attention was the habitation of
Comogre, which, according to the memorials of the time, was an edifice of
a hundred and fifty paces in length and fourscore in breadth, built on
thick posts, surrounded by a lofty stone wall, and on the roof an attic
story, of beautifully and skilfully interwoven wood. It was divided into
several compartments, and contained its markets, its shops, and its
pantheon for the dead; for it was in the corpses of the cacique's
ancestors that the Spaniards first beheld these ghastly remains, dried
and arranged as above described.

The honors of the hospitality were confided to the