The Life of Christopher Columbus

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The Search for Gold

Still passing southward, running into such bays or other harbors as they found, he entered the "Admiral's Bay," in a country which had the name of Cerabaro, or Zerabora. Here an Indian brought a plate of gold and some other pieces of gold, and Columbus was, encouraged in his hopes of finding more.

The natives told him that if he would keep on he would find another bay which they called Arburarno, which is supposed to be the Laguna Chiriqui. They said the people, of that country, lived in the mountains. Here Columbus noticed the fact,--one which has given to philologists one of their central difficulties for four hundred years since,--that as he passed from one point to another of the American shores, the Indians did not understand each other's language. "Every ten or twenty leagues they did not understand each other." In entering the river Veragua, the Indians appeared armed with lances and arrows, some of them having gold also. Here, also, the people did not live upon the shore, but two or three leagues back in the interior, and they only came to the sea by their canoes upon the rivers.

The next province was then called Cobraba, but Columbus made no landing for want of a proper harbor. All his courses since he struck the continent had been in a southeasterly direction. That an expedition for westward discovery should be sailing eastward, seemed in itself a contradiction. What irritated the crews still more was, that the wind seemed always against them.

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