should I lose it. God is just, and will make known the why and the
wherefore.

They judge me over there as they would a governor who had gone to Sicily,
or to a city or town placed under regular government, and where the laws
can be observed in their entirety without fear of ruining everything; and
I am greatly injured thereby. I ought to be judged as a captain who went
from Spain to the Indies to conquer a numerous and warlike people, whose
customs and religion are very contrary to ours; who live in rocks and
mountains, without fixed settlements, and not like ourselves; and where,
by the divine will, I have placed under the dominion of the King and
Queen, our sovereigns, another world,[381-1] through which Spain, which
was reckoned a poor country, has become the richest. I ought to be judged
as a captain who for such a long time up to this day has borne arms
without laying them aside for an hour, and by gentlemen adventurers and
by customs and not by letters,[381-2] unless they were Greeks or Romans,
or others of modern times of whom there are so many and such noble
examples in Spain;[381-3] or otherwise I receive great injury, because in
the Indies there is neither town nor settlement.

The gate to the gold and pearls is now open, and plenty of
everything--precious stones, spices, and a thousand other things--may be
surely expected, and never could a worse misfortune befall me; for by the
name of our Lord the first voyage would yield them just as much as would
the traffic of Arabia Felix as far as Mecca, as I wrote to their
Highnesses by Antonio de Torres in my reply respecting the repartition of
the sea and land with the Portuguese; and afterwards it would equal that
of Calicut, as I told them and put in writing at the monastery of
Mejorada.

The news of the gold that I said I would give is, that on the day of the
Nativity, while I was much tormented, being harassed by wicked Christians
and by Indians, and when I was on the point of giving up everything and,
if possible, escaping from life, our Lord miraculously comforted me and
said, "Fear not violence, I will provide for all things; the seven years
of the term of the gold have not elapsed, and in that and in everything
else I will afford thee a remedy." On that day I learned that there were
eighty leagues of land with mines at every point thereof. The opinion now
is that it is all one. Some have collected a hundred and twenty
castellanos in one day, and others ni