water,
on account of the stormy weather which then prevails in that sea. The
pearls which they extracted from those shells were like peas, but very
fine and white. Of those received from Tomaco, some were black, others
green, blue, and yellow.
On
the return of Balboa's expedition to Darien in 1514, the sight of the
pearls and the wonderful reports made by the men, caused his successor,
Pedrarias, to fit out another expedition, an account of which we
likewise translate from Gomara.
By
command of Pedrarias, Gaspar de Morales went in the year 1515 to the
Gulf of St. Michael, with 550 Spaniards, in quest of the island of
Tara-requi, which was said by Balboa's men to be so abundant in pearls
and so near the coast. The chief of that island sallied forth with many
people to prevent his entrance, and clamored and fought three times
with our people on equal terms, but the fourth time he was defeated. He
then made friends, carried the chief of the Spaniards to his house,
which was a large and good one, gave him food to eat, and a basket of
pearls which weighed 110 marcs [880 ounces]. The chief received for
them some looking-glasses, stringed beads, bells, scissors, axes, and
small wares of barter, which he valued more than he had the pearls. He
promised to give as tribute to the emperor, in whose guardianship he
placed himself, 100 marcs of pearls every year. With these the
Spaniards returned to the Gulf of St. Michael and from thence to Darien.
Tararequi
is within five degrees of the equator. It possessed a great fishÂery
for pearls, which are the largest and best of the new world. Many of
the pearls which the cacique gave were like filberts, others like
nutmegs, and there was one of 26 and another of 31 carats, pear-shaped,
very lustrous, and most perfect, which Peter of the Port, a
shop-keeper, bought of Gaspar de Morales for 12,000 castilians. The
purchaser could not sleep that night for thinking on the fact that he
had given so much money for one stone, and so he sold it the very next
day to Pedrarias de Avila, for his wife Donna Isabel de Bovadilla, at
the same price, and afterwards the Bovadilla sold it to Donna Isabella
the Empress.
Pedrarias,
who delighted in such fishery, requested the cacique to make his men
fish for pearls in the presence of the Spaniards. The fishermen were
great swimmers and divers, and seemed to have spent all their lives in
that employment. They went in small boats when the sea was calm, and
not in any other manner. They cast a stone for an anchor from each
canoe, tied by strong, flexible withes like boughs of the hazel. They
plunged to search for oysters each with a sack or bag at the neck, and
returned loaded with them. They entered four, six, and even ten fathoms
of water, for the shell is larger the deeper they go, and if at times
the larger ones come in shallow water it is through storms, or because
they go from one place to another in search for food, and having found
their pasture they stay there until they have finished it. They
perceive those who search for them, and stick so close to the rocks or
ground, or one to another, that much strength is needed to detach them,
and many times the fishermen cannot raise them and leave them, thinking
they are
