lands was sighted. From
Deseada the galleons steered an easy course to Cape de la Vela, and
thence to Cartagena. When the galleons sailed from Spain alone, however,
they entered the Caribbean Sea by the channel between Tobago and
Trinidad, afterwards named the Galleons' Passage. Opposite Margarita a
second patache left the fleet to visit the island and collect the royal
revenues, although after the exhaustion of the pearl fisheries the
island lost most of its importance. As the fleet advanced into regions
where more security was felt, merchant ships too, which were intended to
unload and trade on the coasts they were passing, detached themselves
during the night and made for Caracas, Santa Marta or Maracaibo to get
silver, cochineal, leather and cocoa. The Margarita patache, meanwhile,
had sailed on to Cumana and Caracas to receive there the king's
treasure, mostly paid in cocoa, the real currency of the country, and
thence proceeded to Cartagena to rejoin the galleons.[15]

The fleet reached Cartagena ordinarily about two months after its
departure from Cadiz. On its arrival, the general forwarded the news to
Porto Bello, together with the packets destined for the viceroy at Lima.
From Porto Bello a courier hastened across the isthmus to the President
of Panama, who spread the advice amongst the merchants in his
jurisdiction, and, at the same time, sent a dispatch boat to Payta, in
Peru. The general of the galleons, meanwhile, was also sending a courier
overland to Lima, and another to Santa Fe, the capital of the interior
province of New Granada, whence runners carried to Popagan, Antioquia,
Mariguita, and adjacent provinces, the news of his arrival.[16] The
galleons were instructed to remain at Cartagena only a month, but bribes
from the merchants generally made it their interest to linger for fifty
or sixty days. To Cartagena came the gold and emeralds of New Granada,
the pearls of Margarita and Rancherias, and the indigo, tobacco, cocoa
and other products of the Venezuelan coast. The merchants of Gautemala,
likewise, shipped their commodities to Cartagena by way of Lake
Nicaragua and the San Juan river, for they feared to send goods across
the Gulf of Honduras to Havana, because of the French and English
buccaneers hanging about Cape San Antonio.[17]

Meanwhile the viceroy at Lima, on receipt of his letters, ordered the
Armada of the South Sea to prepare to sail, and sent word south to Chili
and throughout the pro