Note X-24 — Chapter X · PEDRARIAS DÁVILA ASSUMES THE GOVERNMENT OF DARIEN. 1514-1515.

This was the site of old Panamá. Aboriginally fish in large quantities were dried there. 'Que es provincia adonde los ayres son buenos quando vienen dela mar,' says Herrera, ii. ii. x., 'y malos quando procedẽ de tierra.' In Purchas, His Pilgrimes, iv. 883, is written, 'It might haue had a better seate, and more wholesome, and to the purpose for the trafficke of the South Sea, not going very farre from whence the Citie now stands.' See Juan and Ulloa, Voy., i. 99; Heylyn's Cosmog., 1085; Lloyd, in London Geog. Soc., Jour., i. 85; Findlay's Direct., i. 213; Griswold's Panama, 11; Viagero Univ., xii. 303-30; Andagoya's Nar., 23. Ambiguously Gomara writes, Hist. Ind., 254, 'Deste golfo a Panama ay mas de cinquenta, que descubrio Gaspar de Morales Capitan de Pedrarias de Auila.' Still more indefinite is Benzoni, Hist. Mondo Nvovo, 81, 'Questa prouincia di Panama soleua essere habitata da molti popoli Indiani, e per tutti quei siu mi v'era abbondanza d'oro; ma gli Spagnuoli hanno consumato ogni cosa.'