g so much toil for so long a time. Our Lord, however, gave him
strength even to enable him to encourage the rest, and he worked as if he
had been eighty years at sea, and all this was a consolation to me. I
myself had fallen sick, and was many times at the point of death, but
from a little cabin that I had caused to be constructed on deck, I
directed our course. My brother was in the ship that was in the worst
condition and the most exposed to danger; and my grief on this account
was the greater that I brought him with me against his will.

Such is my fate, that the twenty years of service[393-1] through which I
have passed with so much toil and danger, have profited me nothing, and
at this very day I do not possess a roof in Spain that I can call my own;
if I wish to eat or sleep, I have nowhere to go but to the inn or tavern,
and most times lack wherewith to pay the bill. Another anxiety wrung my
very heartstrings, which was the thought of my son Diego, whom I had left
an orphan in Spain, and dispossessed of my honor and property, although I
had looked upon it as a certainty, that your Majesties, as just and
grateful Princes, would restore it to him in all respects with
increase.[393-2]

I reached the land of Cariay,[393-3] where I stopped to repair my vessels
and take in provisions, as well as to afford relaxation to the men, who
had become very weak. I myself (who, as I said before, had been several
times at the point of death) gained information respecting the gold mines
of which I was in search, in the province of Ciamba;[393-4] and two
Indians conducted me to Carambaru,[393-5] where the people (who go
naked) wear golden mirrors round their necks, which they will neither
sell, give, nor part with for any consideration. They named to me many
places on the sea-coast where there were both gold and mines. The last
that they mentioned was Veragua,[394-1] which was five-and-twenty leagues
distant from the place where we then were. I started with the intention
of visiting all of them, but when I had reached the middle of my journey
I learned that there were other mines at so short a distance that they
might be reached in two days. I determined on sending to see them. It was
on the eve of St. Simon and St. Jude,[394-2] which was the day fixed for
our departure; but that night there arose so violent a storm, that we
were forced to go wherever it drove us, and the Indian who was to conduct
us to the mines was with us all th