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VOYAGES
A N D D I S C O V E R I E S OF
and wrought with such beauty as to cause surprise and admira tion.
It contained many commodious apartments.
There were
store-rooms also ; one filled with bread, with venison, and other provisions ; another with various spirituous beverages, which the Indians made from maize, from a species of the palm, and from roots of different kinds.
There was also a great hall in a retired
and secret part of the building, wherein Comagre preserved the bodies of his ancestors and relatives.
These had been dried by the
fire, so as to free them from corruption, and afterwards wrapped in mantles of cotton, richly wrought and interwoven with pearls and jewels of gold, and with certain stones held precious by the natives.
They were then hung about the hall with cords of cotton,
and regarded with great reverence, if not with religious devo tion. The eldest son of the cacique was of a lofty and generous spirit, and distinguished above the rest by his superior intelligence and sagacity.
Perceiving, says old Peter Martyr, that the Span
iards were a " wandering kind of men, living only by shifts and spoil," he sought to gain favor for himself and family by grati fying their avarice.
He gave Vasco Nunez and Colmenares,
therefore, 4000 ounces of gold, wrought into various ornaments, together with sixty slaves, captives taken in the wars.
Vasco
Nunez ordered one-fifth of the gold to be weighed out and set apart for the crown, and the rest to be shared among his fol lowers. The division of the gold took place in the porch of the dwell ing of Comagre, in the presence of the youthful cacique who had made the gift.
As the Spaniards were weighing it out, a violent
quarrel arose among them as to the size and value of the pieces which fell to their respective shares.
The high-minded