Speaking of their subsequent explorations in the vicinity of the mouth of the Guacasualco River (now called Rio Coatzacoalcos, in Tehuantepec), the Spanish writer says: “As soon as the inhabitants of Guacasualco and the neighboring districts learned that we offered our goods for barter, they brought us all their golden ornaments, and took in exchange green glass beads, on which they set a high value. Besides ornaments of gold, each Indian had with him a copper axe, which was very highly polished, with the handle curiously carved, that served equally as an ornament and, on the field of battle, as a weapon. At first we thought that these axes were made of an inferior kind of gold. Therefore we began to take them in exchange, and in the space of two days collected more than six hundred, with which we were no less pleased, as long as we were ignorant of their real value, than the Indians were with our glass beads.... We set sail for Cuba, and arrived there in the space of forty days.... We were most graciously welcomed by the governor, Diego Velasquez, who was highly delighted with the additional gold we brought him. Altogether, it was well worth 4,000 _pesos_; so that, with the 16,000 brought over by Alvarado, the whole amounted to 20,000 _pesos_.[313] Some made this sum greater, some less; but one thing is certain, the crown officials took only the fifth of the last-mentioned sum. When they were about to take the fifth also of the Indian axes, which we had mistaken for gold, they grew exceedingly angry on finding them only to be of a fine quality of copper. This caused the people to laugh at our trading transactions.”[314]