ched against the
village of Turufy, of which I have spoken when describing the arrival
of Hojeda. He was provided with engines of war, three cannon firing
lead bullets larger than an egg, forty archers, and twenty-five
musketeers. It was planned to fire upon the Caribs from a distance
because they fight with poisoned arrows. It is not yet known where
Bezerra landed nor what he did; but it was feared at Darien when the
vessels were leaving for Spain, that his expedition had turned out
badly.

Another captain, called Vallejo, carried on operations along the lower
part of the gulf, crossing over by another route than that taken by
Bezerra; thus one of them menaced Caribana from the front and the
other from behind. Vallejo has come back, but out of seventy men he
took with him, forty-eight wounded were left in the power of the
Caribs. This is the story told by those who reached Darien, and I
repeat it.

On the eve of the ides of October of this year, 1516, Roderigo
Colmenares, whom I have above mentioned, and a certain Francisco de la
Puente belonging to the troop commanded by Gonzales de Badajoz came to
see me. The latter was amongst those who escaped the massacre executed
by the cacique Pariza. Colmenares himself left Darien for Spain after
the vanquished arrived. Both of them report, one from hearsay and the
other from observation, that a number of islands lie in the South Sea
to the west of the gulf of San Miguel and the Isla Rica and that on
these islands trees, bearing the same fruits as in the country of
Calicut, grow and are cultivated. It is from the countries of Calicut,
Cochin, and Camemor that the Portuguese procure spices. Thus it is
thought that not far from the colony of San Miguel begins the country
where spices grow. Many of those who have explored these regions only
await the authorisation to sail from that coast of the South Sea;
and they offer to build ships at their own cost, if they only be
commissioned to seek for the spice lands. These men think that ships
should be built in the gulf of San Miguel itself, and that the idea of
following the coast in the direction of Cape San Augustin should be
abandoned, as that route would be too long, too difficult, and too
dangerous. Moreover it would take them beyond the fortieth degree of
the southern hemisphere.

This same Francisco, who shared the labours and the perils of Gonzales
says, that in exploring those countries he saw veritable herds of deer
and