id from
the Antipodes, from a country hitherto unknown and inhabited by naked
people, they were received with honour by Juan de Fonseca, to whom the
direction of colonial affairs had been entrusted. In recognition of
his fidelity to his sovereigns, other popes have successively bestowed
on him the bishoprics of Beca, afterwards Cordova, Palencia, and
Rosano; and Your Holiness has just now raised him to the bishopric
of Burgos. Being the first Almoner and Counsellor of the King's
household, Your Holiness has in addition appointed him commissary
general for the royal indulgences, and the crusade against the Moors.

Quevedo and Colmenares were presented by the Bishop of Burgos to the
Catholic King, and the news they brought pleased his Majesty and all
his courtiers, because of their extreme novelty. A look at these men
is enough to demonstrate the insalubrious climate and temperature of
Darien, for they are as yellow as though they suffered from liver
complaint, and are puffy, though they attribute their condition to the
privations they have endured. I heard about all they had done from the
captains Zamudio and Enciso; also through another bachelor of laws,
called Baecia, who had scoured those countries; also from the ship's
captain Vincent Yanez [Pinzon], who was familiar with those coasts;
from Alonzo Nunez and from a number of subalterns who had sailed along
those coasts, under the command of these captains. Not one of those
who came to Court failed to afford me the pleasure, whether verbally
or in writing, of reporting to me everything he had learned. True
it is that I have been neglectful of many of those reports, which
deserved to be kept, and have only preserved such as would, in my
opinion, please the lovers of history. Amidst such a mass of material
I am obliged necessarily to omit something in order that my narrative
may not be too diffuse.

Let us now relate the events provoked by the arrival of the envoys.
Before Quevedo and Colmenares arrived, the news had already been
spread of the dramatic end of the first leaders, Hojeda, Nicuesa, and
Juan de la Cosa, that illustrious navigator who had received a royal
commission as pilot. It was known that the few surviving colonists at
Darien were in a state of complete anarchy, taking no heed to convert
the simple tribes of that region to our religion and giving no
attention to acquiring information regarding those countries. It was
therefore decided to send out a repr