great
sepulchre not far in the interior, where the natives were said to be
buried with all their ornaments of gold, he determined at once to pounce
on so valuable a mine. He held it no sacrilege to plunder the graves of
pagans and infidels, and he took care to secure the law on his side, by
causing to be read and interpreted to all the caciques, a declaration,
informing them of the nature of the Deity, the supremacy of the pope,
and the undoubted validity of his grant of their country to the Catholic
sovereigns.

"The caciques listened to the whole very attentively, and
without interruption, according to the laws of Indian courtesy.
They then replied, that, as to the assertion that there was but
one God, the sovereign of heaven and earth, it seemed to them
good, and that such must be the case; but as to the doctrine
that the pope was regent of the world in place of God, and
that he had made a grant of their country to the Spanish king,
they observed that the pope must have been drunk to give away
what was not his, and the king must have been somewhat mad to
ask at his hands what belonged to others. They added, that they
were lords of those lands, and needed no other sovereign, and
if this king should come to take possession, they would cut off
his head and put it on a pole; that being their mode of dealing
with their enemies.--As an illustration of this custom, they
pointed out to Enciso the very uncomfortable spectacle of a row
of grisly heads impaled in the neighbourhood."

On hearing this answer, the bachelor at once discarded the legal, and
assumed the warlike character. He charged the Indians, and routed them
with ease. He forthwith plundered the sepulchres, but whether he
obtained the expected booty is not recorded. After this exploit, the
worthy bachelor set about establishing the provincial government as
Alcalde Mayor of Ojeda. St. Sebastian being in ruins, and the scene of
so many misfortunes, was speedily deserted, and by the advice of Vasco
Nunez he seized on the village of Darien, drove out the inhabitants,
collected at it great quantities of food and golden ornaments, and
established his capital under the sounding title of Santa Maria de la
Antigua del Darien.

It so happened that this new town was on the western shore of the river
Darien, and consequently within the province of Nicuesa, not of Ojeda.
Some discontented or a