Let us now come to the tragic adventures of Gonzales de Badajoz and his companions.  In the beginning fortune smiled upon them, but sufficiently sad changes very quickly followed.  Gonzales left Darien with forty soldiers in the month of March of the preceding year, 1515, and marched straight to the west, stopping nowhere until he reached the region the Spaniards have named Gracias a Dios, as we have above stated.  This place is about a hundred and eighty miles, or sixty leagues from Darien.  They passed several days there doing nothing, because the commander was unable either by invitations, bribes, or threats to induce the cacique to approach him, although he desired very much to accomplish this.  While camping here he was joined by fifteen adventurers from Darien, under the leadership of Luis Mercado who had left that colony in May, wishing to join Gonzales in exploring the interior.  As soon as the two groups met, they decided to cross the southern mountain chain and take possession of the South Sea already discovered.  The most extraordinary thing of all is, that on a continent of such length and breadth, the distance to the South Sea was not more than fifty-one miles, or seventeen leagues.  In Spain people never count by miles; the land league equals three miles, and the marine league four miles.  When they reached the summit of the mountain chain, which is the watershed, they found there a cacique called Javana.  Both the country and its ruler bear the name of Coiba, as we have already stated is the case, at Careta.  As the country of Javana is the richest of all in gold, it is called Coiba Rica.  And in fact, wherever one digs, whether on dry land or in the river-beds, the sand is found to contain gold.  The cacique Javana fled when the Spaniards approached, nor was it possible to overtake him.  They then set to work to ravage the neighbourhood of his town, but found very little gold, for the cacique had taken with him in his flight everything he possessed.  They found, however, some slaves who were branded in a painful fashion.  The natives cut lines in the faces of the slaves, using a sharp point either of gold or of a thorn; they then fill the wounds with a kind of powder dampened with black or red juice, which forms an indelible dye and never disappears.  The Spaniards took these slaves with them.  It seems that this juice is corrosive and produces such terrible pain that the slaves are unable to eat on account of their sufferings.  Both the kings who originally captured these slaves in war, and also the Spaniards, put them to work hunting gold or tilling the fields.

Leaving the town of Javana, the Spaniards followed the watershed for ten miles, and entered the territory of another chief, whom they called the “Old Man,” because they were heedless of his name and took notice only of his age.  Everywhere in the country of this cacique, both in the riverbeds and in the soil, gold was found.  Streams were abundant and the county was everywhere rich and fertile.