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the implacable enmity of Pedrarias; but they now sought the governor, and throwing themselves at his feet, entreated that this man might be spared, as he had taken no active part in the alleged treason. The daylight, they said, was at an end, and it seemed as if God had hastened the night, to prevent the execution.

"The stern heart of Pedrarias was not to be touched. 'No,' said he, 'I would sooner die myself than spare one of them.' The unfortunate Arguello was led to the block. The brief tropical twilight was past, and in the gathering gloom of the night the operations on the scaffold could not be distinguished. The multitude stood listening in breathless silence, until the stroke of the executioner told that all was accomplished. They then dispersed to their homes with hearts filled with grief and bitterness, and a night of lamentation succeeded to this day of horrors.

"The vengeance of Pedrarias was not satisfied with the death of his victim; he confiscated his property and dishonoured his remains, causing his head to be placed upon a pole and exposed for several days in the public square.*

"Thus perished, in his forty-second year, in the prime and vigour of his days and the full career of his glory, one of the most illustrious and deserving of the Spanish discoverers a victim to the basest and most perfidious envy."+

From the statement of the French editor referred to on page 255, it might be inferred that Oviedo left Darien in 1515. Mr. Irving, it will be perceived, speaks of him as in the colony when Nuñez was executed. Supposing this to be so, it must have been 1517 before he went to Saint Domingo and thence to Spain.

* Oviedo, ubi sup.

Voyages of Companions of Columbus, p. 275, 6.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Of the voyage of Juan de Ampies to Coriana in 1517; and the building of the town of Coro; also of Oviedo, the celebrated historian.

Pedro Alonzo Niño, in the voyage mentioned in the tenth chapter, coasted to an Indian village named Coriana. When famine and bad treatment had destroyed the greatest part of the population of Hayti, and they began to be in want of slaves to work in the mines, vessels from that isle went to different parts of Terra Firma and took all the Indians they could, and carried them to be sold at Saint Domingo. There these unhappy beings perished by thousands. At length the abuse became so great, that the authorities of Saint Domingo sent into the province in which Coriana was Juan de Ampies, as governor, to found an establishment there and protect the natives. Ampies set out with a vessel and sixty men he disembarked at Coriana in 1517, and formed an alliance with Mannaure, the principal cacique of the Caquetios, who inhabited this province; an alliance so respected by the Indians, says Father Simon, that notwithstanding the bad treatment and cruelties of the Spaniards, they could not bring themselves to break it. In the place of Coriana, Ampies built a town named Coro, which was soon peopled by a great number of Spanish adventurers, drawn from all quarters by the rumor of the riches of this country.

In 1519, under the emperor's orders Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo returned to America to take part in the confiscations of the property of Vasco Nuñez, which amounted to a large sum. He arrived the 24th of June 1520, at the port of Darien. After losing here his wife and a son, he went to Panama to join Pedrarias, who afterwards made him governor of Darien. He returned to Spain in 1523. It was about this time that he published the first edition of his History of Nicaragua. In 1526, Oviedo set out again for America. He joined at Nicaragua Pedro Lopes de Salcedo, and became governor of Carthagena. In 1535, he was alcaid of Saint Domingo, and historiographer of the Indias. He died in 1557 at Valladolid, at the age of 69 years.

This chapter is taken from the preface to his History of Nicaragua, and from the preface to a volume entitled "Belle et agréable narration du premier voyage de Nicolas Federmann le Jeune, d' Ulm aux indes de la mer Oceane et de tont cequi lui est arrivé dans a pays jusqu'a son retour en espagne écrite brièvement, et divertissante a lire." Both volumes have been republished at Paris, by Henri Ternaux, in his collection of voyages, relations and memoirs; the prefaces of the French editor are those from which this chapter is taken.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Of the discovery of Yucatan by Francisco Hernandez de Cordova in 1517; the voyage thither of Juan de Grijalva in 1518; the rescue there in 1519, by Hernando Cortez of Jeronimo de Aguilar, one of the companions of Valdivia, whose vessel was stranded on that coast several years before; and the famous voyage of Magellan.

Several years had elapsed in the manner mentioned in chapter twenty-fourth, when in 1517 intelligence was brought to the province where Aguilar was, of the arrival on the neighbouring coast of great vessels of wonderful construction, filled with white and bearded men. It was in fact the squadron of Francisco Hernandez de Cordova. Yucatan was discovered this year by him, and by the pilot Juan Alaminos, a native of Palos, who had accompanied Columbus in his fourth voyage. Cordova was for some time along the coast of Yucatan, and lost many men in his different rencontres with the natives. The heart of Jeronimo de Aguilar beat quick with hope when he heard of European ships at hand. from the coast however, and was too closely watched by the Indians to have any chance of escape. After Cordova left this coast, he was driven by a storm upon the shore of Florida: thence he returned to Cuba, where he died ten days after his arrival.*

He was distant

* Voyages of Companions of Columbus, p. 283. "Recueil de pièces relatives a la conquête du Mexique." See note at the end of next paragraph.

A new expedition was determined on. Diégo Velasquez chose to command it Juan de Grijalva, a native of Cuellar, who had distinguished himself in several expeditions against the Indians of Cuba. On the first of March 1518,* his fleet set out from Cuba. He saw on the 4th houses on a promontory, and gave to this land the name of Saint Croix. The next day he reconnoitered the coast of Yucatan and the isle of Cuzamil. In the account of this voyage it is mentioned that some Indians, among whom was the chief of their village, approaching the vessels, the Spaniards asked news of the christians whom Francisco Hernandez had left in Yucatan, and was told in reply that one of them was dead and the other still alive; that they followed the coast to find the survivor, and on the 6th, went on land, but at first saw no one; that they mounted upon a tower there with a circumference of one hundred and eighty feet, planted the standard upon one of the fronts, and took possession in the name of the king; that afterwards they saw some Indians and went into their village; that amongst the houses were five well constructed, with a base very large and massive, and surmounted by turrets ; that the village was paved with hollow stones, the streets rising at the sides and descending in the middle, which was paved entirely with large stones; that the sides were occupied by the houses of the inhabitants, constructed of stones from the foundation to half the height of the walls, and covered with straw; and that judging by the buildings, these Indians were very ingenious. Other villages are described on the

*The date given by some others is April, and by one January 1518.

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