shirt, one a cloak, and another a hat.  Such articles of apparel please them very much, and they now no longer go naked.  Their labour is thus divided between the mines and their own fields as though they were slaves.  Although they submit to this restraint with impatience, they do put up with it.  Mercenaries of this kind are called anaborios.  The King does not allow them to be treated as slaves, and they are granted and withdrawn as he pleases.[6]

[Note 5:  Porto Rico.]

[Note 6:  The system of repartimientos.  Consult the writings of Las Casas on this subject.]

When they are summoned, as soldiers or camp-followers are drafted by recruiting agents, the islanders fly to the woods and mountains if they can, and rather than submit to this labour they live on whatever wild fruit they find.  They are a docile people, and have completely forgotten their old rites, complying without reasoning, and repeating the mysteries they are taught.  The Spanish gentlemen of position educate sons of caciques in their own houses, and these lads easily learn the elements of instruction and good manners.  When they grow up and especially if their fathers are dead, they are sent back to Hispaniola, where they rule their compatriots.  As they are devout Christians, they keep both Spaniards and natives up to their duties, and cheerfully bring their subjects to the mines.  There are gold mines found in two different districts, of which the first, called San Cristobal, is about thirty miles from the town of Dominica.  The other, called Cibaua, is about ninety miles distant.  Porto Real is situated there.

Great revenues are drawn from these countries, for gold is found both on the surface and in the rocks, either in the form of ingots or of scales which are sometimes small but generally of considerable weight.  Ingots weigh 300 pounds, and sometimes even more, for one has been found which weighed 310 pounds.[7] You have heard it said that this one was brought, just as it was found, to the King of Spain, on board the ship on which the governor Bobadilla embarked for Spain.  The ship, being overloaded with men and gold, was wrecked and sunk with all it contained.  More than a thousand witnesses saw and touched this ingot.  When I speak of pounds I do not mean precisely a pound, but a weight equal to a golden ducat of four ounces, which is what the Spaniards call a peso or castellano of gold.  All the gold found in the mountains of Cibaua is transported to the blockhouse of La Concepcion, where there are founderies for receiving and melting the metal.  The royal fifth is first separated, after which each one receives a share according to his labour.  The gold from the mines of San Cristobal goes to the founderies of Bona Ventura; the amount of gold melted in these founderies exceeds 300 pounds of metal.  Any Spaniard who is convicted of having fraudulently kept back a quantity of gold not declared to the royal inspectors, suffers confiscation of all the gold in his possession.  Contentions frequently occur among them, and if the magistrates of the island are unable to settle them, the cases are appealed to the Royal Council, the decisions of that tribunal being without appeal in the King’s dominions of Castile.