e or better cultivated country in all the world, nor
one whose inhabitants are more timid; added to which there is a good
harbor, a beautiful river, and the whole place is capable of being
easily put into a state of defence. All this tends to the security of
the Christians and the permanency of their sovereignty, while it
affords the hope of great increase and honor to the Christian religion;
moreover the road hither will be as short as that to Espanola, because
there is a certainty of a fair wind for the passage. Your Highnesses are
as much lords of this country as of Xerez or Toledo; your ships if they
should go there, go to your own house. From there they will take gold;
in other lands to have what there is in them, they will have to take it
by force or retire empty-handed, and on the land they will have to trust
their persons in the hands of a savage.[412-1]

Of the other [matter] that I refrain from saying, I have already said why
I kept silent. I do not speak so, neither [do I say] that I make a
threefold affirmation in all that I have ever said or written nor that I
am at the source.[412-2] The Genoese, Venetians and all other nations
that possess pearls, precious stones, and other articles of value, take
them to the ends of the world to exchange them for gold. Gold is most
excellent; gold is treasure, and he who possesses it does all he wishes
to in this world, and succeeds in helping souls into paradise. They say
that when one of the lords of the country of Veragua dies, they bury all
the gold he possessed with his body. There were brought to Solomon at one
journey[412-3] six hundred and sixty-six quintals of gold, besides what
the merchants and sailors brought, and that which was paid in Arabia. Of
this gold he made two hundred lances[412-4] and three hundred shields,
and the flooring[412-5] which was to be above them was also of gold, and
ornamented with precious stones; many other things he made likewise of
gold, and a great number of vessels of great size, which he enriched with
precious stones. This is related by Josephus in his Chronicle _De
Antiquitatibus_; mention is also made of it in the Chronicles and in the
Book of Kings.[413-1] Josephus thinks that this gold was found in the
Aurea;[413-2] if it were so, I contend that these mines of the Aurea are
identical with those of Veragua, which, as I have said before, extends
westward twenty days' journey, and they are at an equal distance from the
Pole and t