e, he settles
on that spot with his slaves, as though within a temple, whose limits
the Augurs have traced with their sacred staves. The Christians use
native labour both in the mines and in agriculture. This plot of land
may be held as long as the occupant wishes; and in case no gold, or
very little, should be found there, a request for a fresh square of
like dimensions is presented, and the parcel of abandoned land reverts
to the common demesne. This is the order followed by the colonists of
Darien who are engaged in gold-seeking. I think it is the same for the
others, but I have not questioned all of them. Sometimes such a parcel
of twelve paces square has netted its possessor the sum of eighty
castellanos. Such is the life people lead to satisfy the sacred hunger
for gold;[10] but the richer one becomes by such work, the more does
one desire to possess. The more wood is thrown on the fire, the more
it crackles and spreads. The sufferer from dropsy, who thinks to
appease his thirst by drinking, only excites it the more. I have
suppressed many details to which I may later return if I learn that
they afford pleasure to Your Holiness, charged with the weight of
religious questions and sitting at the summit of the honours to which
men may aspire. It is in no sense for my personal pleasure that I have
collected these facts, for only the desire to please Your Beatitude
has induced me to undertake this labour.

[Note 10: _Sic vivitur in sacra fame auri explenda_.]

May Providence, which watches over this world, grant to Your Holiness
many happy years.

END OF VOL. I.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2)
by Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

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