tree in that country, the juice of which is
a strong poison if it touch a mans blood; but if drank, it is a sovereign
antidote against poison. They have here also certain gold coins, called
drachms, brought, as they say, into their country by the Romans[21],
which seems to have some resemblance to truth, because beyond that
country there are no gold coins.

In 1508, Alphonso de Hojeda went with the license of King Ferdinand, but
at his own charges, to conquer the province of Darien, in the Terra Firma
of the new world. Landing in the country of Uraba, he called it Castilia
del Oro, or Golden Castile, because of the gold found in the sand along
its coast. He went first from the city of San Domingo, in Hispaniola,
with four ships and three hundred soldiers, leaving behind him the
bachelor Anciso, who afterwards compiled a book of these discoveries. He
was followed by a fourth ship with provisions and ammunition, and a
reinforcement of 150 Spaniards. Hojeda landed at Carthagena, where the
natives took, slew, and devoured seventy of his men, by which his force
was much weakened. Some time after but in the same year, Diego de Niquesa
fitted out seven ships in the port of Beata, intending to go to Veragua
with 800 men; but coming to Carthegana, where he found Hojeda much
weakened by his losses, they joined their forces, and avenged themselves
of the natives. In this voyage Niquesa discovered the coast called Nombre
de Dios, and went into the sound of Darien, on the river Pito, which he
named Puerto de Misas. Coming to Veragua, Hojeda went on shore with his
soldiers, and built there the town of Caribana, as a defence against the
Caribbees; being the first town built by the Spaniards on the continent
of the new world. He also built another at Nombre de Dios, and called it
Nuestra Seniora de la Antigua. A town was built at Uraba, in which
Francis Pisarro was left with the command, who was there much annoyed by
the natives. They likewise built other towns, the names of which I omit.
In this enterprize the Spaniards did not meet with the success they
expected.

In 1509, Don Diego Columbus, the second admiral of New Spain, went to the
island of Hispaniola with his wife and household; and she, being a noble
woman, carried with her many ladies of good families, who were there
married; by which means the Spaniards began to multiply in their new
colony, and Hispaniola became famous and much frequented. Columbus
likewise reduced Cuba i