HISTORY; 7 



were caught with large nets of stuff like hemp, called by the Indians nequen, the 

 meshes being a finger in breadth. These nets were fastened at the entrance of 

 a wood where there was a herd of swine, who came against the nets and were 

 unable to get through the meshes. Then the people called out, the nets fell over 

 the swine, and they were killed with lances, so that none escaped of those that 

 fell into the nets." 1 



Gil Gonzalez de Avila also coasted along these shores as far as the Gulf of 

 San Lucar. About the same time Francisco Hernandez de Cordova was sent by 

 Pedrarias to subdue and settle Nicaragua. He founded the cities of Leon and 

 Granada. Two of his captains, Francisco Campanon and Soto, objecting to his 

 acts, left overland for Panama where they arrived without horses and barefooted. 

 " They had passed the villages of the Indians at night, and taken provisions from 

 them. Thus they had reached the province of Chiriqui, which is between Burica 

 and Nisca, where there was a settlement which had been made by Captain Benito 

 Hurtado, by order of Pedrarias, called the city of Fonseca. . . . After these ten 

 Spaniards had passed through this city of Fonseca, the captain, with some followers, 

 set out in the direction of Nicaragua, whence the others had come. Thus the 

 settlement was abandoned ; for those who remained, seeing that their comrades 

 did not return, went after them to the Gulf of San Lucar." 2 Fonseca, presumably the 

 first settlement made on the Pacific coast of Chiriqui and so soon to be abandoned, 

 was probably at or near the present San Lorenzo on the Rio Fonseca (see map). 



With Pedrarias there came Oviedo, the " first chronicler of the New World," 

 and surveyor of the royal foundries, from whom we get a glimpse of the Pacific 

 coast tribes of the region from which our antiquities came. Passages from his 

 Historia General y Natural de las Indias? in which Chiriqui is first mentioned, 

 are as follows : u En la costa del Sur, en el golpho de Orotina, comien9a la lengua 

 de Nicaragua, e de alii discurre ha9ia Poniente ; e mas adelante 9inco leguas hay 

 un grand pueblo de chorotegas a la parte del Levante ; e ocho leguas al Poniente 

 de la dicha Orotina hay otro que se llama Coribia. E son los dos indios de otra 

 lengua apartada de todas las que se han dicho en esta historia : e alii traen las 

 mugeres bragas, e todo lo demas traen desnudo, e tambien en la provin9ia de 

 Cheriqui y en Judea ; pero Cheriqui ni Judea no son desta goberna9ion, sino en 

 la costa desde el golpho de Orotina al Oriente ha9ia Panama. En las islas del 

 golpho de Nicaragua 6 de Orotina todas las mugeres traen bragas ; e son choro- 

 tegas e lo mismo los de Nicoya, como esta dicho. 



" Desde Nicoya a la parte del Oriente ha9ia Panama e Castilla del Oro e lo 

 demas son los ca9iques senores : e de alii abaxo al Poniente ha9ia Nicaragua son 

 behetrias e comunidades, e son elegidos los que mandan las repiiblicas. . 



" La provin9ia de los Cabiores es a veynte 6 veynte e 9inco leguas de Cheriqui, 

 al Poniente en la costa del Sur ; e la provin9ia de Durucaca es junto a la de 

 Cabiores. En estas dos provin9ias hilan los hornbres como mugeres, e lo tienen 

 por cosa e offi9io ordinario para ellos. 



1 Pascual de Andagoya. Narrative of the proceedings of Pedrarias Davila ; transl. by 

 Clements R. Markham, 24, London, 1865. 



2 Op. cit., 37. 



l! IV, 108, Madrid, 1855. 



