“What thing then is this, Christians?  Is it possible that you set a high value upon such a small quantity of gold?  You nevertheless destroy the artistic beauty of these necklaces, melting them into ingots. [For the Spaniards had their smelting instruments with them.] If your thirst of gold is such that in order to satisfy it you disturb peaceable people and bring misfortune and calamity among them, if you exile yourselves from your country in search of gold, I will show you a country where it abounds and where you can satisfy the thirst that torments you.  But to undertake this expedition you need more numerous forces, for you will have to conquer powerful rulers, who will defend their country to the death.  More than all others, the King Tumanama will oppose your advance, for his is the richest kingdom of all.  It lies six suns distant from ours [they count the days by suns]; moreover you will encounter Carib tribes in the mountains, fierce people who live on human flesh, are subject to no law, and have no fixed country.  They conquered the mountaineers for they coveted the gold mines, and for this reason they abandoned their own country.  They transform the gold they obtain by the labour of the wretched mountaineers into wrought leaves and different articles such as those you see, and by this means they obtain what they want.  They have artisans and jewellers who produce these necklaces.  We place no more value on rough gold than on a lump of clay, before it has been transformed by the workman’s hand into a vase which pleases our taste or serves our need.  These Caribs also make artistic potteries which we obtain in exchange for the products of our harvests, as for example our prisoners of war, whom they buy for food, or our stuffs and different articles of furniture.  We also furnish them with the supplies they need; for they live in the mountains.  Only by force of arms could this mountain district be penetrated.  Once on the other side of those mountains,” he said, indicating with his finger another mountain range towards the south, “another sea which has never been sailed by your little boats [meaning the caravels] is visible.  The people there go naked and live as we do, but they use both sails and oars.  On the other side of the watershed the whole south slope of the mountain chain is very rich in gold mines.”

Such was his speech, and he added that the cacique Tumanama, and all the mountaineers living on the other slope of the mountain, used kitchen and other common utensils made of gold; “for gold,” he said, “has no more value among them than iron among you.”  From what he had heard from the Spaniards he knew the name of the metal used for swords and other arms.  Our leaders were amazed at that naked young man’s discourse which, thanks to the three deserters who had been during eighteen months at the court of Careca, they understood.  They took a decision worthy of the moment and, abandoning their wrangling over the gold-weighing, they began to joke and to discuss amiably the words and information of the young cacique.  They asked him amicably why he had told them that story, and what they should do in case reinforcements did arrive.  The son of Comogre reflected for a moment, as does an orator preparing for a serious debate, even thinking of the bodily movements likely to convince his hearers, and then spoke again as follows, always in his own language: