The Spaniards fired their cannon, and the natives, alarmed by the detonation and by the slaughter that resulted from the well-aimed shot, took to flight in various directions.  Pursuing them with a ship’s boat, the Spaniards killed some and took many prisoners.  The noise of the cannon and the report of what had happened so alarmed the caciques, who feared their villages would be robbed and their people massacred if the Spaniards landed to take vengeance, that they sent messengers to Vincent Yanez.  As far as could be understood from their signs and gestures they sought peace; but our compatriots report that they did not understand a word of their language.  The better to demonstrate their desire for peace, the natives made them beautiful presents, consisting of a quantity of gold, equal in weight to three thousand of the kind of coins we have said are called castellanos, and in vulgar language pesos; also a wooden tub full of precious incense, weighing about twenty-six hundred pounds, at eight ounces to the pound.  This showed the country was rich in incense, for the natives of Paria have no intercourse with those of Saba; and in fact they know nothing of any place outside their own country.  In addition to the gold and the incense, they presented peacocks such as are not found elsewhere, for they differ largely from ours in the variety of their colours.  The hens were alive, for they kept them to propagate the species, but the cocks, which they brought in great numbers, were dressed to be immediately eaten.  They likewise offered cotton stuffs, similar to tapestries, for household decoration, very tastefully made in various colours.  These stuffs were fringed with golden bells such as are called in Italy sonaglios and in Spain cascabeles.  Of talking parrots, they gave as many of different colours as were wanted; these parrots are as common in Paria as pigeons or sparrows are amongst us.

All the natives wear cotton clothing, the men being covered to the knees, and the women to the calves of their legs.  In time of war the men wear a carefully quilted coat of cotton, doubled in the Turkish style.  I have used the word cotton for what I have otherwise called in the vulgar Italian bombasio.  I have also used other analogous terms which certain Latinists, dwelling along the Adriatic or Ligurian coasts, may attribute to my negligence or ignorance, when my writings reach them,[3] as we have seen in the case of my First Decade which was printed without my authorisation.  I would have them know that I am a Lombard, not a Latin; that I was born at Milan,[4] a long way distant from Latium, and have lived my life still farther away, for I reside in Spain.  Let those purists of Venice or Genoa who accuse me of improprieties of composition because I have written as one speaks in Spain of brigantines and caravels, of admiral and adelantado, understand, once for all, that I am not ignorant that he who holds these offices is called by the Hellenists Archithalassus and by the Latinists sometimes Navarchus and sometimes Pontarchus.  Despite all such similar comments, and provided I may nourish the hope of not displeasing Your Holiness, I shall confine myself to narrating these great events with simplicity.  Leaving these things aside, let us now return to the caciques of Paria.