CHAPTER III
HOW THE SPANIARDS SETTLED IN DARIEN
COLUMBUS having reported that there was gold in Veragna, the King of Spain decided to found a colony there, and another beyond the Gulf of Uraba, where Bastidas had found pearls and gold. Into this gulf flowed a river so great that it filled the bay with fresh water at low tide. This river, which is now called the Atrato, was then called the Darien, and it has given that name to all the South American end of the Isthmus.
Christopher Columbus died, a broken-hearted old man, in 1506, but his brother Bartholomew, the Adelantado, was alive and anxious to colonize the "Dukedom" of Veragua. But Queen Isabella, their patron, was also dead, and the greedy King Ferdinand was jealous of their family, and wanted these new gold-fields for the crown. So he appointed a court favorite, Diego de Nicuesa, to be governor of all the land between Cape Gracias à Dios, and the Gulf of Uraba. This was made the province of Castilla del Oro, or Golden Castille.
The poorer land east and south of the gulf was called Nueva Andalucia (New Andalusia) and given to Alonso de Ojeda, a bold explorer, the first to have followed Columbus to the New World. On that voyage, in 1499, Ojeda had had with him the Florentine merchant's clerk,
