imid deer or fierce boars; and it often happens
that there is no need of swords or javelins to rout the enemy. A
command is given to these dogs who form the vanguard, and the
natives at the mere sight of these formidable Molossians[4] and the
unaccustomed sound of their baying, break their ranks and flee as
though horrified and stupefied by some unheard-of prodigy. This does
not occur in fighting against the natives of Caramaira or the Caribs,
who are braver and understand more about war. They shoot their
poisoned arrows with the rapidity of lightning, and kill the dogs in
great numbers; but the natives of these mountains do not use arrows
in warfare; they only use machanes,[5] that is to say, large wooden
swords, and lances with burnt points.

[Note 4: _Torvo molossorum adspectu_. Referring to the dogs of
Epirus, called by the Romans, Molossi.]

[Note 5: The _maquahuitle of the Mexicans; a flat wooden club, in
which blades of _iztli_, or flint, were set on the opposite edges; it
was their most formidable weapon in hand-to-hand encounters.]

While Pacra was still alive they asked him where his people obtained
gold, but neither by persuasion nor threats nor tortures could they
drag this secret from him. When asked how he had procured what he had
possessed,--for he had offered a present of thirty pounds of gold out
of his treasury--he answered that those of his subjects who, either
in the time of his parents or in his own, had mined that gold in the
mountain were dead, and that since his youth he had not troubled
to look for gold. Nothing more could be obtained from him on this
subject.

The rigorous treatment of Pacra secured Vasco the friendship of the
neighbouring caciques, and when he sent for the sick, whom he had left
behind to join him, a cacique, called Bononiama, whose country the
route directly traversed, received them kindly and gave them twenty
pounds of wrought gold and an abundance of provisions. Nor would he
leave them until he had accompanied them from his residence to that of
Pacra, as though they had been confided to his fidelity. He spoke thus
to Vasco: "Here are your companions in arms, Most Illustrious Warrior;
just as they came to me, so do I bring them to you. It would have
pleased me had they been in better health, but you and your companions
are the servants of him who strikes the guilty with thunder and
lightning, and who of his bounty, thanks to the kindly climate, gives
us yucca and maize.