THE NAME AMERICA. 653 



whom he went to Carambaru, another land. Carambaru in all proba- 

 bility, as we shall see if we eonsult a map of the eoast, was at or near 

 the mouth of the Rio Blewflelds and theie he found Indians wearing 

 round their neeks mirrors in gold which they declimd to trade away. 



Those Indians can not be any others than the Amerriques, who then 

 inhabited the gold area of the j^rovince of Ciamba, occupying all the 

 placeres of the Eios Mico and Carca, the two main affluents of the Rio 

 Blewfit Ids. Being not successful in his endeavor to get their gold mir- 

 rors, Colombo was not well disposed to speak much of those Indians, 

 and he did not give their name uor the name of the country from which 

 they got tiie gold, speaking only of the province of Ciamba and the vil- 

 lage of Carambaru, without localizing the area of gold in the Sierra 

 Amerrique, as he did for Veragua. 



But because Colombo did not write the name Amerrique in his letter 

 to the King and Queen of Spain it does not follow that he did not hear it ; 

 and it would be against all that we know of discoverers of gold regions 

 if the name Amerrique was not heard and afterwards repeated by Co 

 lombo and the one hundred and hfty men of his crews. If Colombo 

 is the only man who ever wrote anything about that eventful and difli- 

 cult voyage, all his hundred and fifty companions spoke at their return 

 of what they saw and heard during the voyage ; and it is to them, and 

 probably also to Colombo, that is due the spread among the people of 

 the name Amerriqve as a country rich in gold and of Indians of that 

 name possessing gold mirrors as their only article of dress. The name 

 passed from mouth to month, first among seamen, and then it pene- 

 trated into the continent of Europe so fast that in less than twelve 

 years the name Amerrique was generally used to designate the New 

 World, according to a contemporary, John Schoeuer, of Bamberg. 



That the name came from the masses of the people and not from the 

 few scholars who could read and write Latin is admitted by everybody. 

 Ofticially the name was " Las Indias" and " New World." Until 1520 

 we do not possess a single map with the name America, and if any ex- 

 isted with that name, they have been lost and destroyed, since their 

 number must have been extremely limited ; and they can not be quoted 

 as having spr« ad the name among the people, who then did not know 

 how to read, for we must always have in mind that it was the begin- 

 ning of the sixteenth century and that the number of people able to 

 read and write was very small and formed a special class far above the 

 common people and having only occasional contact with the masses. 



In resume, Colombo and his one hundred and fifty comi)anions saw 

 Indians on the ]\Ios(]uito coast wearing gold mirrors round their necks 

 and otherwise naked. They had long talks with them in regard to 

 countries and peoi>les where the gold existed in their neighborhood. 

 We know now that those Indians were the Amerriques Indians, that they 

 live still in the most productive gold area of that region, and that the 

 Sierra Amerrique is, according to Thomas Belt, the most conspicuous 



