50 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 102 



Oriental bezoar, for the remarkable cures worked by them, such 

 being the reputation and fame of the bezoar stones of Macanao. The 

 island produces an abundance of swine and of game birds, pigeons, 

 turtledoves, and other wild fowl. 



Chapter VII (!) 



Of the Raid Upon This Island and City by the Rebel Lope de 

 Aguirre, and of the Way in Which They Fish for Pearls. 



126. The rebel freebooter Lope de Aguirre, after killing Gov. 

 Pedro de Ursua on the Maranon, and inflicting countless cruelties 

 and barbarities on his companions in that expedition, arrived at this 

 island of Margarita in the year 1560, late in the day of the glorious 

 Magdalen, July 22. At first he pretended to have been defeated and 

 forced to run in, so that they should supply him with boats and assis- 

 tance ; then by a trick he seized the Governor of the island, at that 

 moment Don Juan de Villandrando ; the Alcaldes, Alguacil Mayor, 

 and other leading residents of the city and island ; but Captain 

 Monguia, whom he had ordered to go and bring a ship lying at 

 Maracapana belonging to the Provincial of the Dominican Order, 

 Fr. Francisco de Montesinos, who was pacifying that province and 

 tribe with his preaching, would not obey his accursed command but 

 declared that his soldiers and he stood with the friar and had sworn 

 allegiance to His Majesty. Lope, in addition to many cruel and arbi- 

 trary acts against many other leading personages of the island, in 

 return for the welcome and kindly treatment they extended to him, 

 took vengeance on the poor Governor and Alcaldes by garroting 

 and hanging them, and he killed many other leading residents of the 

 island, and members of its garrison, during his stay in the city and 

 on the island. Finally, seeing that he was not safe there, he built a 

 ship in 28 days' time and sailed in it to the port of La Borburata, 

 after laying waste the city and the island ; then he went into Nueva 

 Valencia, where he committed a thousand cruelties and robberies, until 

 he was overcome and killed by the valiant Militia Captain Diego 

 Garcia de Paredes, of the noble house of the renowned and unsur- 

 passed Diego Garcia de Paredes, as will be told in due season. 



127. The way they fish for pearls in this district, is as follows. 

 At the water's edge within sight of the oyster beds and pearl fishery 

 they establish settlements which they call rancherias and every evening 

 the canoes anchor there. These canoes are really sizable lateen-rigged 

 frigates, but although they are ships of 1,500 fanegas' capacity of 

 wheat or corn, in this pearl-fishing trade they call them canoes. To 



