ICAEXT nOLD-'WASHIKOS. 
213 
The gold-washings of the Eio Sinn, heretofore so inuport- 
Mit, above all, between its source and the village of San 
Geronimo, have almost entirely ceased, as well as those of 
Cienega de Tolu, Uraba, and all the rivers descending from 
the mountains of Abibe. “The Darien and the ^enu,” 
says the bachelor Eneiso, in his geographical work, pidnished 
at the beginning of the sixteenth century, “ is a country so 
I'ich in gold pepites, that, in the running waters, that metal 
ean he fished with nets.” Excited hy these narratixes, the 
governor Pedrarias sent his lieutenant, I'rancisco BeceiTU, 
'll 1515, to the Eio Sinu. This expedition was most untor- 
tunate, for Becerra and his troop were massacred by tlic 
natives, of whom the Spaniards, according to the custom ot 
the time, had carried away great numbers to be sold as 
f^laves in tlie West Indies. The province ol Antioquia now 
furuisbes, in its auriferous veins, a vast field tor mnnng 
speculations ; but it migbt be well wortli wlnlc to relinquish 
gold-washings for the cultivation of colonial productions, in 
tile fertile lands of Sinu, the Eio Damaqmel, the Uraba, and 
the Darien del Norte ; above all, that of cacao, wliicli is ot a 
superior qualitv. The proximity of the port ot Carthageiia 
^'ould also render the neglected cultivation ot cinchona an 
object of great importance to European trade, lhat pre- 
cious tree vegetates at the source of the Eio Sinu, .ns m the 
luoimtains of Ahibd and Maria. The real febrifuge ciiicbona, 
'vith a hairy corolla, is nowhere else found so near tlie 
coast, if we except the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta. 
The Eio Sinu and the Gulf of Darien were not visited by 
Columbus. The most eastern point at which that great man 
touched land, on the 26tli November, 1503, is the Puerto de 
Hetreto, now called Punta de Eseribanos, near the Punta ot 
lilan Bias, in the isthmus of Panama. Two years previous^, 
Kodrigo do Bastidas and Alaiiso de Ojed.n, .nccompanied by 
Amerigo Vespucci, bad discovered the whole coast o le 
main land, from the Gulf of Alaracaybo as fivr as the Puerto 
fie Eetreto. Having often bad occasion in the preceduig 
Volumes to speak of New Andalusia, I may bore mention 
ll'at I found that denomination, for the first time, in tie 
convention made by Alonso de Ojeda with the Conquistador 
Diego de Siciiessa, a powerful man, say the historians o^ 
We time, “ because be was a flattering courtier and a v it. 
