What I have recently learnt about the eastern shore is as follows:  the entire country lying to the east between the promontory and shore which extend into the sea and receive the force of the waves, as far as Boca de la Sierpe and Paria, is called by the general name of Caribana.  Caribs are found everywhere, and are called from the name of their country,[3] but it is well to indicate from whence the Caribs take their origin, and how, after leaving their country, they have spread everywhere like a deadly contagion.  Nine miles from the first coast encountered coming from seawards where, as we have said, Hojeda settled, stands in the province of Caribana a village called Futeraca; three miles farther on is the village of Uraba, which gives its name to the gulf and was formerly the capital of the kingdom.  Six miles farther on is the village of Feti, and at the ninth and twelfth miles respectively stand the villages of Zeremoe and Sorachi, all thickly populated.  All the natives in these parts indulged in man-hunts, and when there are no enemies to fight they practise their cruelties on one another.  From this place the infection has spread to the unfortunate inhabitants of the islands and continent.

[Note 3:  There are more theories than one concerning the origin of the Caribs and their name.  Among other writers who have treated this subject may be cited Reville, in an article published in the Nouvelle Revue, 1884, and Rochefort in his Histoire naturelle et morale des isles Antilles.]

There is another fact I think I should not omit.  A learned lawyer called Corales, who is a judge at Darien, reported that he encountered a fugitive from the interior provinces of the west, who sought refuge with the cacique.  This man, seeing the judge reading, started with surprise, and asked through interpreters who knew the cacique’s language, “You also have books?  You also understand the signs by which you communicate with the absent?” He asked at the same time to look at the open book, hoping to see the same characters used among his people; but he saw the letters were not the same.  He said that in his country the towns were walled and the citizens wore clothing and were governed by laws.  I have not learned the nature of their religion, but it is known from examining this fugitive, and from his speech, that they are circumcised.[4] What, Most Holy Father, do you think of this?  What augury do you, to whose domination time will submit all peoples, draw for the future?

[Note 4:  ..._recutiti tamen dispraeputiatique, ab exemplo et sermone fugitivi confererunt_.  The man may have been a Peruvian or of the civilised plateau people of Cundinamarca.  Wiener, in his interesting work, Perou et Bolivie, studies the Peruvian system of writing.]