All the fertile country lying between the great lakes and the Pacific was densely populated at the time of the conquest, and it was not far from Masaya that the great chief, Diriangan, lived, who tried, but tried in vain, to stem the onward course of the Spaniards. Gil Gonzales de Avila was in command of the first expedition sent to explore the country of Nicaragua. He sailed from Panama with one hundred followers and four horses, the latter, auxiliaries whose aid was never dispensed with in these expeditions on account of the superstitious terror with which the unaccustomed sight of a man and a horse, apparently joined together, inspired the Indians. He landed somewhere on the Gulf of Nicoya, near which he entered the country of a powerful chief, after whom the gulf was named. Nicoya entertained the Spaniards courteously, supplied them with food, and embraced the Christian religion, being baptised himself along with all his people, six thousand in number. Pushing on to the northward for fifty leagues, Gonzales entered the territories of a great chief named Nicaragua, whose country comprised the present province of Rivas. Nicaragua had been informed of "the sharpness of the Spanish swords" and received Gonzales with hospitality, presenting him with much gold, equal to "25,000 pieces of eight," and garments and plumes of feathers. He asked the Spaniards many shrewd questions: about the flood, and about the sun, moon, and stars; their motion, quality, and distance; what was the cause of night and day and the blowing of the winds? how the Spaniards got all their information about heaven; who brought it to them, and if the messenger came down on a rainbow? We are told that "Gonzales answered to the best of his ability, commending the rest to God." Probably his interrogator knew more of the visible heavenly bodies than he did, for Nicaragua was of the Aztec race, a people who knew the true theory of eclipses, and possessed an astronomical calendar of great accuracy.