CHAP.
VI.]
CHRISTOPHER
COLUMBUS.
343
Columbus immediately ordered the mouths of the Belen, and of its neighboring river of Veragua, to be sounded. The latter proved too shallow to admit his vessels, but the Belen was some what deeper, and it was thought they might enter it with safety. Seeing a village on the banks of the Belen, the admiral sent the boats on shore to procure information. On their approach, the inhabitants issued forth with weapons in hand to oppose their landing, but were readily pacified. They seemed unwilling to give any intelligence about the gold mines ; but, on being impor tuned, declared that they lay in the vicinity of the river of Vera gua. To that river the boats were dispatched on the following day. They met with the reception so frequent along this coast, where many of the tribes were fierce and warlike, and are sup posed to have been of Carib origin. As the boats entered the river, the natives sallied forth in their canoes, and others assem bled in menacing style on the shores. The Spaniards, however, had brought with them an Indian of that coast, who put an end to this show of hostility by assuring his countrymen that the strangers came only to traffic with them. The various accounts of the riches of these parts appeared to be confirmed by what the Spaniards saw and heard among these people. They procured in exchange for the veriest trifles twenty plates of gold, with several pipes of the same metal, and crude masses of ore. The Indians informed them that the mines lay among distant mountains ; and that when they went in quest of it they were obliged to practice rigorous fasting and continence.* * A superstitions notion with respect to gold appears to have been very prevalent among the natives.
The Indians of Hispaniola observed the same
privations when they sought for it, abstaining from food and from sexual inter course.
Columbus, who seemed to look upon gold as one of the sacred