Having "pacified" the country, Balboa was for returning to Darien, but was persuaded by Careta to diverge to his own province, where he was royally entertained by the cacique. The latter had a neighbor, one Comogre, who was yet more powerful than himself, having about ten thousand Indians under him, three thousand of whom were warriors. His province comprised an extensive plain and beautiful valleys, situated at or near the foot of a very lofty mountain, which rose far above the general altitude of the cordillera, or backbone of the isthmus. Messengers sent by Comogre guided Balboa to this province, in the capital of which the cacique awaited his coming. As the Spaniards approached, Comogre came out to welcome them, attended by a train of sub-chiefs, and followed by a vast number of his subjects. Included in his suite were seven stalwart young men, his own sons by as many different wives, of whom he was inordinately proud. Each son had a habitation of his own, but that of the cacique surpassed anything of the sort the Spaniards had seen in the land, for it was "an edifice of an hundred and fifty paces in length and fourscore in breadth, built on stout posts, surrounded by a lofty wall, and on the roof an attic story of beautiful and skilfully interwoven woods. It was divided into several compartments, and contained its markets, its shops, and a pantheon for the dead, where the dried corpses of the cacique's ancestors were hung in ghastly rows." These corpses were in a retired and secret part of the structure, says the historian, set apart for that special purpose. The bodies had been dried by fire (as already narrated in the account of Careta's ancestors), so as to free them from corruption, and afterwards wrapped in mantles richly wrought and interwoven with pearls and jewels of gold, and with certain stones considered precious by the Indians. There they hung about the hall, suspended by cords of cotton, and were regarded not only with reverence, but apparently with religious devotion. The Spaniards gazed upon them in amazement, not unmingled with a burning desire to despoil this hall of fame and secure for themselves its wonderful treasures. VI FIRST TIDINGS OF THE PACIFIC 1512