I, who desired the preservation of that country, took occasion to make friends with that religious, in order to inform myself the better under pretence of curiosity.

I asked him to tell me what he knew of those mines, whereupon that religious (who was already en route for the return to the islands) told me that what he had said was true; and further he said: "No one knows as much about those mines as I, because some Indians came down from the mountains and I entertained them.

They told me that there was a great deal of gold up there, and that of what they took from the mines, half the ore was gold." And he said that when one of them, who was already somewhat versed in our tongue, saw reals of eight, he said to him: "We have much of this metal there, Father, much in the mines; but Indian wants nothing besides gold." I conferred with the bishop of Nueva Segovia (as that province falls under his jurisdiction), who was Don Fray Diego de Soria, a Dominican, and with another religious, the provincial of the same order, named Fray Bernardo de Santa Catalina, in regard to this matter; and I gave them so many arguments to incline them to my plan that they were brought to my way of thinking.

The most convincing argument which I used was to persuade them that the same reason did not hold there as in Nueva Espana and Piru, for ill-treating the Indians; for there are so many Chinese who are raising their hands to God to find something to work at--as many as are necessary, as was well known by them.

Thereupon they told me all the information that they had for certain from various Indians--not only from the Christians, some of whom had gone up peacefully to trade, but likewise from those from above who came down to the province.