“First.  Having delivered the letters of credence which you carry from me for their Highnesses, you will kiss for me their Royal feet and hands and will recommend me to their Highnesses as to a King and Queen, my natural Lords, in whose service I desire to end my days:  as you will be able to say this more fully to their Highnesses, according to what you have seen and known of me.

          ["Their Highnesses hold him in their favour.]

“Item.  Although by the letters I write to their Highnesses, and also the father Friar Buil and the Treasurer, they will be able to understand all that has been done here since our arrival, and this very minutely and extensively:  nevertheless, you will say to their Highnesses on my part, that it has pleased God to give me such favour in their service, that up to the present time.  I do not find less, nor has less been found in anything than what I wrote and said and affirmed to their Highnesses in the past:  but rather, by the Grace of God, I hope that it will appear, by works much more clearly and very soon, because such signs and indications of spices have been found on the shores of the sea alone, without having gone inland, that there is reason that very much better results may be hoped for:  and this also may be hoped for in the mines of gold, because by two persons only who went to investigate, each one on his own part, without remaining there because there was not many people, so many rivers have been discovered so filled with gold, that all who saw it and gathered specimens of it with the hands alone, came away so pleased and say such things in regard to its abundance, that I am timid about telling it and writing it to their Highnesses:  but because Gorbalan, who was one of the discoverers, is going yonder, he will tell what he saw, although another named Hojeda remains here, a servant of the Duke of Medinaceli, a very discreet youth and very prudent, who without doubt and without comparison even, discovered much more according to the memorandum which he brought of the rivers, saying that there is an incredible quantity in each one of them for this their Highnesses may give thanks to God, since He has been so favourable to them in all their affairs.

["Their Highnesses give many thanks to God for this, and consider as a very signal service all that the Admiral has done in this matter and is doing:  because they know that after God they are indebted to him for all they have had, and will have in this affair:  and as they are writing him more fully about this, they refer him to their letter.]

“Item.  You will say to their Highnesses, although I already have written it to them, that I desired greatly to be able to send them a larger quantity of gold in this fleet, from that which it is hoped may be gathered here, but the greater part of our people who are here, have fallen suddenly ill:  besides, this fleet