When the Spaniards left his village he not only furnished them guides, but also slaves who were prisoners of war and who took the place of beasts of burden in carrying on their shoulders provisions for the march.  They had to pass through lonely forests and over steep and rocky mountains, where ferocious lions and tigers abounded.  Taocha placed his favourite son in command of the slaves, whom he loaded with salt fish and bread made of yucca and maize; he commanded his son never to leave the Spaniards and not to come back without permission from Vasco.  Led by this young man, they entered the territory of a chief called Pacra, who was an atrocious tyrant.  Whether frightened because conscious of his crimes, or whether he felt himself powerless, Pacra fled.

During this month of November the Spaniards suffered greatly from the heat and from the torments of thirst, for very little water is found in that mountainous region.  They would all have perished, had not two of them who went to search for water, carrying the pumpkins Taocha’s people brought with them, found a little spring which the natives had pointed out, hidden in a remote corner of the forest.  None of the latter had ventured to stray from the main body, for they were afraid of being attacked by wild beasts.  They recounted that on these heights and in the neighbourhood of this spring, ferocious beasts had carried off people in the night, and even from their cabins.  They were, therefore, careful to put bolts and all kinds of bars on their doors.  It may perhaps not be out of place, before going farther, to relate a particular instance.  It is said that last year a tiger ravaged Darien, doing as much damage as did formerly the raging boar of Calydon or the fierce Nemaean lion.  During six entire months, not a night passed without a victim, whether a mare, a colt, a dog, or a pig being taken, even in the street of the town.  The flocks and the animals might be sacrificed but it was not safe for people to quit their houses, especially when it sought food for its whelps; for when they were hungry the monster attacked people it found rather than animals.  Anxiety led to the invention of a means of avenging so much bloodshed.  The path it took when leaving its lair at night in search of prey, was carefully studied.  The natives cut the road, digging a ditch which they covered over with boughs and earth.  The tiger, which was a male, was incautious, and, falling into the ditch, remained there, stuck on the sharp points fixed in the bottom.  Its roarings filled the neighbourhood and the mountains echoed with piercing howls.  They killed the monster stuck on the points, by throwing great stones from the banks of the ditch.  With one blow of its paw it broke the javelins thrown at it into a thousand fragments, and even when dead and no longer breathing, it filled all who beheld him with terror.  What would have happened had it been free and unhurt!  A civilian called Juan de Ledesma, a friend of Vasco, and his companion in