In this wise the excellent Gonzales de Badajoz and his companions wandered, without any fixed plan, until they came to the territory of Anata; and during their journey they had collected piles of gold, girdles, women’s breast ornaments, earrings, headdresses, necklaces, and bracelets, to the value of eighty thousand castellanos more.  This they had acquired, either by trading their merchandise or by pillage and violence; for the majority of the caciques had opposed their passage and had sought to resist them.  They had in addition forty slaves, whom they used as beasts of burden to carry their provisions and baggage, and also to care for the sick.

The Spaniards traversed the country of a cacique, Scoria, and arrived at the residence of another called Pariza.  They did not expect to be attacked, but the cacique closed about them with a great number of armed men, surprising them at a moment when they were off their guard and scattered.  They had no time to seize their weapons; seventy of them were wounded or killed, and the rest fled, abandoning their gold and all their slaves.  Very few of them ever came back to Darien.

The opinion of all the sages upon the vicissitudes of fortune and the inconstancy of human affairs would prove unfounded if this expedition had terminated profitably and happily; but the ordering of events is inevitable, and those who tear up the roots, sometimes find sweet liquorice and sometimes bitter cockle.  Woe, however, to Pariza! for he shall not long rest quietly.  This great crime will soon be avenged.  The governor was preparing to lead a campaign against him in person at the head of three hundred and fifty men when he fell ill.  The learned jurisconsult, Caspar Espinosa, royal judge at Darien, took his place and acted as his lieutenant; at the same time the Spaniards sent to the island called Rica to collect the tribute of pearls imposed upon its cacique.  We shall in due course learn what happened.

Other leaders marched against the dwellers on the other side of the gulf; one of whom, Francisco Bezerra, crossed the head of the gulf and the mouth of the Dabaiba River.  His band consisted of two officers and a hundred and fifty well-armed soldiers.  His plan was to attack the Caribs in the country of Caribana itself.  He first marched against the village of Turufy, of which I have spoken when describing the arrival of Hojeda.  He was provided with engines of war, three cannon firing lead bullets larger than an egg, forty archers, and twenty-five musketeers.  It was planned to fire upon the Caribs from a distance because they fight with poisoned arrows.  It is not yet known where Bezerra landed nor what he did; but it was feared at Darien when the vessels were leaving for Spain, that his expedition had turned out badly.

Another captain, called Vallejo, carried on operations along the lower part of the gulf, crossing over by another route than that taken by Bezerra; thus one of them menaced Caribana from the front and the other from behind.  Vallejo has come back, but out of seventy men he took with him, forty-eight wounded were left in the power of the Caribs.  This is the story told by those who reached Darien, and I repeat it.