The authority asked for certainly was not granted; but, on the other hand, there was no intimation that the proposition would, in the end, meet with a refusal. Columbus seems to have thought it not imprudent to take advantage of the doubt; for Bernaldez tells us that the Admiral “made incursions into the interior, and captured vast numbers of the natives; and the second time that he sent home, he sent five hundred Indian men and women, all in the flower of their age, between twelve years and thirty-five or thereabouts, all of whom were delivered at Seville to Don Juan de Fonseca.” “They came,” continued Bernaldez, “as they went about in their own country, naked as they were born; from which they experienced no more embarrassment than the brutes.” “They were sold,” the narrator adds, “but proved of very little service, for the greater part of them died of the climate.” Of interesting significance also are the passages and answers relating to gold. In one of the paragraphs Columbus calls attention to the fact that although the gold discovered has been found in the streams, it must have come from the earth, and that the procuring of it will involve the delay necessarily attending the establishment of mining operations. He recommends that labourers in considerable numbers be sent out from the quicksilver mines. To these suggestions the king responds,-- “It is the most necessary thing possible that he should strive to find the way to this gold.” And to the suggestion in regard to the mines he responds,-- “This shall be completely provided for in the next voyage out; meanwhile Don Juan de Fonseca has their Highnesses’ orders to send as many miners as he can find. Their Highnesses write also to Almaden with instructions to select the greatest number that can be procured, and to send them up.”