2 Colonel Joaquin Acosta, " Compendio Historico del Descubri-
miento de la Nueva Granada." (Paris, 1848.)



10 GONZALO JIMENEZ DE QUESADA

garden, nor was any land ploughed up for crops. Their
clothes and food they forced out of the Indians, for they
did nothing for themselves. Thus they were like a band of
gipsies dressed in skins and roughly woven cotton cloths,
made by the Indians. In fact, they had fallen as low in
the social scale as were the natives whom they had come
to educate and civilize.
When the brilliant cavaliers, all dressed in silks with velvet
cloaks and shining arms, gilt morrions and waving plumes,
disembarked upon the beach, they were met by the interim
general Don Antonio Bezos and the members of the town
council, all dressed like muleteers.^ One of the captains
of the newcomers asked them if their clothes were cut after
the fashion-plates in the celebrated book on " Indumen-
taria," by Lazaro Buonamico. They did not know that
amongst the men they derided were to be found the cele-
brated baquianos, who were to be so useful in the conquest.^

Castellanos,^ in his rhymed chronicle, has a vivid picture
of the settlers.
Few governors of colonies in the New World have found
themselves in a more miserable plight than did Don Pedro
in his new government.
1 En traje ds arrieros.
^ Son los baquianos los que aconsejan & proposito, rastrean,
caminan y no se cansan, cargan lo que se ofrece, sudan, sufren el
hambre, la sad, el sol, agua y serene . . . ni les pesan las armas
ni huyen del trabajo; buscan y conocen las comidas silvestres. . ..
