While at this place, one Bartholomew Prado went to a temple which stood in the fields, whence he brought some of the perfume used by the Indians, named copal, or, as some call it, gum anime.  He also brought away the knives of flint, with which the priests sacrifice men to their false gods, by ripping them open, and some idols.  He delivered all these things to Grijalva, having first taken off the ear-rings, pendants, plates, and crowns of gold with which the idols were adorned, worth about ninety pieces of eight, which he endeavoured to conceal; but not being able to dissemble his joy for the booty he had obtained, Grijalva had notice of it; yet, being of a generous temper, he restored all to Prado, reserving only the fifth for the king.  When they had refitted their ship, they sailed in forty-five days to Cuba, with gold to the value of 4000 pieces of eight, besides what Alvaredo had carried.  When they came to pay the fifth for the copper axes, which they had bought for gold, they were much confused on finding them rusty.  They put into the harbour of Matancas, where Grijalva found a letter from Velasquez, ordering him to tell the soldiers that another fleet was fitting out for returning to make a settlement in New Spain, and that those who chose to go back should remain at some farms belonging to the governor in that neighbourhood.  Grijalva himself was ordered to come with all speed with the ships to Santiago, where the new fleet was fitting out.  On appearing before Velasquez, he had no thanks for all the trouble he had been at, and was even abused for not having made a settlement, though he had acted exactly according to his instructions.  This was a capital blunder in Velasquez, as he seemed resolved to find a person fitted both for making discoveries and of betraying him by setting up for himself.  One would have imagined that a man of so much good sense as Velasquez certainly had, would have had the judgment to retain in his employment a person so fit for his purpose as Grijalva had proved; and the very thing for which he disgraced him ought assuredly to have preserved him from that fate, since only by a scrupulous regard to his instructions had he refrained, after such valuable discoveries, from pursuing that line of conduct by which he was most likely to have established his fortune and independence.  But Velasquez, like many other men of excellent abilities, often preferred the opinions of others to his own, thereby losing the opportunities which his superior talents afforded.  Yet it is highly probable that this very error contributed more to the important conquests which were afterwards made by the Spaniards, than the wisest measures he could have taken.

[1] The Sue Tajassu of Naturalists, or the Pecary.  This singular species
    of the hog tribe, has an open glandular orifice in the hinder part of
    the back, which discharges an unctuous foetid liquor, which must be
    cut out immediately after the death of the animal, otherwise the whole
    carcase is soon tainted with an intolerable odour.—­E.