a well-weighed and merited decision.  You must choose between two alternatives.  Either you will kill me or you will grant my request.  The children God has given us (there were eight of them, four boys and four girls) will not stop me for one moment.  We will leave them their heritage and their marriage portions, sufficient to enable them to live in conformity with their rank, and besides these, I have no other preoccupation.”

Upon hearing his wife speak such words from her virile heart, the husband knew that nothing could shake her resolution, and therefore, dared not refuse her request.  She followed him as Ipsicratea, with flowing hair, followed Mithridates, for she loved her living husband as did the Carian Artemisia of Halicarnassia her dead Mausolus.  We have learned that this Elizabeth Bobadilla brought up, as the proverb says, on soft feathers, has braved the dangers of the ocean with as much courage as her husband or the sailors who pass their lives at sea.

The following are some other particulars I have noted.  In my First Decade I spoke, and not without some praise, of Vincent Yanez Pinzon, who had accompanied the Genoese, Christopher Columbus, the future Admiral, on his first voyage.  Later, he undertook, by himself and at his own cost, another voyage, with but one ship for which he received the royal license.  During the year preceding the departure of Hojeda and Nicuesa, Vincent Yanez undertook a third exploration, sailing from Hispaniola.  His course was from east to west, following the southern shore of Cuba, which, owing to its length, many people at that time thought a continent; and he sailed round it.  Many other persons have since reported that they have done the same.

Having demonstrated by this expedition that Cuba was indeed an island, Vincent Yanez sailed farther, and discovered other lands west of Cuba, but such as the Admiral had first touched.  He kept to the left and, following the continental coasts towards the east, he crossed the gulfs of Veragua, Uraba, and Cachibacoa, touching finally with his ship at the region which, in our First Decade, we have explained was called Paria and Boca de la Sierpe.  He sailed into an immense gulf noted by Columbus as remarkable for its fresh waters, the abundance of fish, and the many islands it contained.  It is situated about thirty miles east of Curiana.  Midway in this course Cumana and Manacapana are passed; and it is at these places, not at Curiana, where the most pearls are found.

The kings of that country, who are called chiaconus just as they are called caciques in Hispaniola, sent messengers when they learned of the Spaniards’ arrival, to ascertain who the unknown men might be, what they brought with them, and what they wanted.  They launched upon the sea their barques dug out of tree trunks which are the same mentioned in our First Decade, and are called canoes in Hispaniola; but here the natives called them chicos.  What most astonished them was to see the swelling sails of the ship, for they did not understand the use of sails; and if they did they would only require small ones, because of the narrowness of their barques.  They approached the ship in great numbers and even ventured to shoot some arrows at the men who defended the ship’s sides as though they were walls, hoping either to wound or frighten them.