The only object of the admiral in this voyage being to discover the country, and to procure samples of its productions, he proceeded without farther delay to Catiba, and cast anchor in the mouth of a great river. The people of the country were seen to gather, calling one another together with horns and drums, and they afterwards sent two men in a canoe towards the ships; who, after some conversation with the Indians who had been taken at Cariari, came on board the admiral without any signs of apprehension, and by the advice of the Cariari Indians gave the admiral two gold plates which they wore about their necks, for which he gave them some baubles in return. When these went on shore, there came another with three men, wearing gold plates at their necks, who parted with them as the others had done. Amity being thus settled, our men went on shore, where they found numbers of people along with their king, who differed in nothing from the rest, except that he was covered with one large leaf of a tree to defend him from the rain which then fell in torrents. To give his subjects a good example, he bartered away his gold plate, and bade them exchange theirs with our men, so that they got nineteen in all of pure gold. This was the first place in the Indies where our people had seen any sign of building, as they here found a great mass of wall or masonry that seemed to be composed of stone and lime, and the admiral ordered a piece of it to be brought away as a memorial or specimen. From thence we sailed eastwards to Cobravo, the people of which place dwell near the rivers of that coast; and because none of the natives came down to the strand, and the wind blew fresh, he held on his course to five towns of great trade, among which was Veragua, where the Indians said the gold was gathered and the plates manufactured. The next day he came to a town called Cubiga, where the Indians of Cariari said that the trading country ended; this began at Carabora and extended to Cubiga for 50 leagues along the coast. Without making any stay here, the admiral proceeded on till he put into Porto Bello, to which he gave that name because it is large, well peopled, and encompassed by a finely cultivated country. He entered this place on the 2d of November, passing between two small islands within which ships may lie close to the shore, and can turn it out if they have occasion. The country about that harbour and higher up is by no means rough, but cultivated and full of houses a stone throw or a bow-shot only from each other, and forms the finest landscape that can be imagined. We continued there seven days on account of rain and bad weather, and canoes came constantly to the ships from all the country round to trade with provisions and bottoms of fine spun cotton, which they gave in exchange for points and pins and other trifles.