Note 68 — Chapter I

Signifying "here is nothing." The insatiable thirst of the Spanish discoverers for gold is justified by the greatest of all discoverers, the disinterested Columbus himself, on high religious principles. When acquainting their Castilian majesties with the abundance of gold[69] to be procured in the newly-found countries, he thus speaks, "El oro es excelentisimo, del oro se hace tesoro; y con el quien lo tiene hace quanto quiere en el mundo, y elega a que echa las animas al paraiso." (Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages, vol. i., p. 309.) A passage which the modern editor of his papers affirms to be in conformity with many texts of Scripture.