Gold and godliness were the two great engines which drove on the Spaniards to overrun and occupy the lands discovered by Columbus. The dissolute indulgence of these passions, so opposite, and yet in them so strangely blended, resulted not alone in the extermination of the Americans, but reacting upon themselves, dimmed the ancient glory of Spain, and sent rottenness to the bones of the then most powerful nation of Europe. "In that climate," says Gomara, "as in Peru the people turn yellow. It may be that the desire for gold which fills their hearts shines forth in their faces." Some claim to have computed that during the first century after the conquest of Peru there went from the New World to Spain silver enough to make a bridge across the Atlantic, a yard and a half wide, and two inches thick, or that brought together in a heap it would overtop the mountains of Potosí!
In Española, immediately after the discovery of America, one piece of gold was found weighing 3,200 Castellanos. Miners obtained from six to 250 castellanos a day. In the ships which perished with Bobadilla, gold to the value of 200,000 Castellanos was lost. In the year 1501 Rodrigo de Bastidas and Juan de la Cosa exchanged with the natives of Darien hawksbells and glass beads for pearls and the golden ornaments of the naked savages. In 1502 Columbus had no sooner landed upon the coast of Honduras than
nated by gold-colored or gilt spots. On map no. iv., supposed to have been drawn by Salvat de Pilestrina about 1515, gold is indicated in our territory only on the Pearl Islands. Map of Fernando Colon, 1527, represents gold in Castilla del Oro, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Yucatan, and none on the islands. Map no. vi., the maker not known, but supposed to have been drawn between the years 1532 and 1540, has gold indicated on the Pearl Islands, the island of teguante paque in the vicinity of Tehuantepec, island of sancius tomas (Santo Tomás), off cape St Lucas, two islands off the coast of Lower California called madalena and los cazones. Map no. vii., by Baptista Agnese, 1540-50, Pearl Islands, Iucatan, Yucatan which is represented as an island, two small islands off the southern coast of Central America, called y de guerra and y de gatos. Further north off Tehuantepec the island teguante paque. Off Sinaloa one small island sorata. Maps nos. x., xi., xii., by Vaz Dourado, 1571, a multitude of islands on both shores of Central America and Mexico are represented as gold-bearing. None of the interior is so colored.
