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VOYAGES
A N D DISCOVERIES OF
Vasco Nunez determined to take his fortunes in his own hands, and to prosecute in secret his grand project of exploring the re gions beyond the mountains.
For this purpose, he privately dis
patched one Andres Garabito to Cuba to enlist men, and make provisions for an expedition across the isthmus, from Nombre de Dios, and for the founding a colony on the shores of the Southern Ocean ; whence he proposed to extend his discoveries by sea and land. "While Vasco Nunez awaited the return of Garabito, he had the mortification of beholding various of his colonizing plans pur sued and marred by Pedrarias.
Among other enterprises the
governor dispatched his lieutenant-general Juan de Ayora, at the head of four hundred men, to visit the provinces of those caciques with whom Vasco Nunez had sojourned and made treaties on his expedition to the Southern Sea.
Ayora partook of the rash and
domineering spirit of Pedrarias, and harassed and devastated the countries which he pretended to explore.
He was received with
amity and confidence by various caciques who had formed treaties with Vasco Nunez ; but he repaid their hospitality with the basest ingratitude, seizing upon their property, taking from them their wives and daughters, and often torturing them to make them reveal their hidden or supposed treasures.
Among those treated
with this perfidy, we grieve to enumerate the youthful cacique who first gave Vasco Nunez information of the sea beyond the mountains. The enormities of Ayora and of other captains of Pedrarias produced the usual effect ; the natives were roused to desperate resistance ; caciques, who had been faithful friends, were con verted into furious enemies, and the expedition ended in disap pointment and disaster.