LIFE
344
AND VOYAGES
OF
[BOOK V I .
tile, overwhelmed them with hospitality, and, in fact, impeded their journey by their kindness.
They had also to ford many rivers in
traversing this plain, so that they were five or six days in reach ing the chain of mountains which locked up, as it were, the golden region of Cibao. They penetrated into this district, without meeting with any other obstacles than those presented by the rude nature of the country.
Caonabo, so redoubtable for his courage and fero
city, must have been in some distant part of his dominions, for he never appeared to dispute their progress.
The natives received
them with kindness; they were naked and uncivilized, like the other inhabitants of the island, nor were there any traces of the important cities which their imaginations had once pictured forth. They saw, however, ample signs of natural wealth.
The sands
of the mountain-streams glittered with particles of gold; these the natives would skillfully separate, and give to the Spaniards, without expecting a recompense.
In some places they picked up
large specimens of virgin ore from the beds of the torrents, and stones streaked and richly impregnated with it.
Peter Martyr
affirms that he saw a mass of rude gold weighing nine ounces, which Ojeda himself had found in one of the brooks.* All these were considered as mere superficial washings of the soil, betraying the hidden treasures lurking in the deep veins and rocky bosoms of the mountains, and only requiring the hand of labor to bring them to light.
As the object of his expedition
was merely to ascertain the nature of the country, Ojeda led back his little band to the harbor, full of enthusiastic accounts of the golden promise of these mountains.
A young cavalier of the
name of Gorvalan, who had been dispatched at the same time on a similar expedition, and who had explored a different tract of * Peter Martyr, decad. i. lib. ii.