Secondary title is The Memoirs of Darién, 1514-1527. This is a smooth and flowing English translation of Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo's General and Natural History of the Indies, Part II, Book XXIX, Chapters VI thru XXIV, with both the translation and the introduction by G.F. Dille.
G.F. Dille focuses on Oviedo's first-hand experiences in the settlement of Spain's first colonies on the mainland in what is known today as Panama. Prior to his first voyage to the New World, Oviedo had spent much of his youth as a page to Prince Juan, the son of Ferdinand and Isabella, and as such was educated in the royal court. Originally sent overseas as a notary, he quickly advanced to the position of overseer of the gold smelting operations. Carlos V later authorized Oviedo as the official historian of New Spain. As Dille states in the Foreword,

"From his youthful days at the court
of Queen Isabella and King
and Ferdinand,
his travels through Italy, and then
four decades of residence in the
Indies, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo
was uniquely positioned to chronicle
everything related to the New World.
Kings and princes, cardinals and
bishops, explorers and conquistadors,
bureaucrats and merchants–there was
scarcely anyone whom he did not know,
converse with, or correspond with.
From 1492, when Oviedo first saw
Columbus at the siege of Granada, until
his death in 1557 in the fortress
guarding Santo Domingo, he
painstakingly recorded and evaluated
every scrap of information on the
Indies he came across. Yet, of the
thousands of pages filled with his
neat italic script, only a small
portion saw print during his lifetime.
The fifty books of the *General and
Natural History* were only published
three centuries after his death and
several thousand pages of other
writings still await editing. This
translation of Oviedo's Darién years
is intended for a general audience
interested in early American history
as well as the history of Spain during
the age that catapulted that country
to the position of dominant European
power in an astonishingly short period
of time."