Note VI-14 — Chapter VI · THE GOVERNMENTS OF NUEVA ANDALUCÍA AND CASTILLA DEL ORO. 1506-1510.

The name familiar to cartographers often assumed in those days peculiar orthography on the maps. Thus Fernando Colon writes this name nõbre; Ribero, nõb; Agnese, nõmbre de dio; Vaz Dourado, nöbre de dios; Ramusio, Nome de dio; Hondius, in Purchas, Nom de Dios; Mercator, Dampier, Ogilby, the author of West-Indische Spieghel, Jefferys, and their successors, contrary to their frequent custom, all write the words correctly. This place, as we shall hereafter see, was for a long time famous as the chief post on the northern coast of Tierra Firme through which passed the merchandise from Spain and the gold from Peru. Says Benzoni, Hist. Mondo Nvovo, 79: 'Questa Città stà situata nel mare di Tramontana. Sogliono adunque communemente ogn'anno andare di Spagna al Nome di Dio, da quattordici, ò quindici naui, fra piccole, e grande, e la maggior porterà mille, e ottocento salme; cariche di robbe diuerse.' Dampier about a century later found the spot where the city had stood overgrown with trees. Its abandonment was owing to poisoned air, the same unwholesome climate that broke up all the early settlements on this coast, the last being always regarded as the worst.