And though we were four hundred,
yet there might be in the Royal Plain forty thousand, and
their hue and their economy was yet prince in the land, and
the Spaniard a visitor. And there commanded the four hundred
a humane man, with something of the guilelessness of
the child.
We crossed the Yaqui in canoes and upon rafts. White,
brown and black, the horses swam the stream. Again nigh
impenetrable forest, again villages, again clear singing and
running waters. But ever the mountains came closer. At
last we entered hilly country and the streams pushed with
rapidity, flowing to the Yaqui, flowing to the sea. Now we
began to find gold. It glistened in the river sands. Sometimes
we found nuts of it, washed from the rocks far above.
There came upon us the gold fever. Mines--we must open
mines! Fermin Cedo, our essayer, would have it that it
was not Ophir, but at that time he was hardly believed.
The Admiral wrote a letter about these golden mines.
An Indian brought him a piece of amber; another, a
lump of blue stone. We found jasper, we were sure of
copper.
We came to a natural rampart, wide at top, steeply descending
on three sides, set in a loop of a little clear river
named Yanique. "Ho!" cried Alonso de Ojeda. "Here is
the cradle for the babe! Round tower, walls, barbican
yonder, and Mother Nature has dug the moat!" He sent
his voice across to the Viceroy.
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