our ships a league and a half from the coast. We got out our boats, and, having manned and armed them, we went on land.

"Before we went ashore we were greatly delighted in seeing many people wandering along the beach. We saw that they were naked and that they seemed to be frightened when they beheld us, likely, as I supposed, by seeing us clothed, and of a different stature from their own. They retired to a mountain, and we could not entice them to hold any intercourse with us, notwithstanding we endeavored to induce them by signs of peace and friendship.

"We sailed to the northwest' in which direction the coast extended, always in sight of land, seeing continually, during the voyage, people on the shore. After sailing two days, we found a secure place for the ships, and anchored half a league from the land. *** The natives were somewhat timid, and it was a long time before we were able to dispel their fear and induce them to come and talk to us. *** Giving them such things as looking-glasses, bells, beads, and other trifles, we enticed a number of them to approach and enter into friendly relations with us.

*

"These people go entirely naked and wear not a particle of clothing. They are of a medium size and very well proportioned. Their skin is reddish like the color of a lion's skin. *** They do not allow any hair to grow on their eyelids and eyebrows, nor on any part of their bodies; only on their heads, for they think it very unbecoming. The men and women are exceedingly quick in their movements, and are uncon

"Nauiga'mo per el maestrale, che cosi sicorreua la costa sempre a uista di

terra."

In Italy the different points of the compass were designated by the winds: North, tramontana; northeast, greco; east, levante; southeast, sirocco; south, ostro; southwest, libeccio; west, ponente; northwest, maestro or maestrale.

strained in their deportment. They walk and run rapidly. The women do not think it a difficult thing to run a league or two. *** These people are excellent swimmers. The women surpass the men, for we have observed them many times swimming unaided, fully two leagues out from land.

"The weapons of these people are bows and arrows. These are curiously made. They have no iron or any other hard metal on them. They use instead the teeth of animals or fish. * They are expert bowmen, and hit with their arrows whatever they shoot at. The women in some parts of the country handle the bow with considerable skill. Their other weapons are lances and clubs with elaborately carved heads. When they go to make war their wives accompany them, not to fight, but to carry provision on their backs. Sometimes a woman will convey a burden in this manner thirty or forty leagues, which the strongest men there cannot do as we have frequently observed.

"These people, although they appear ignorant as talkers, are very sagacious and crafty in any matter in which they are interested. They do not talk much, and when they do, it is in a low tone. * Their languages differ so much that we found people living within the space of a hundred leagues who could not understand one another's speech. They

do not partake of food at appointed times nor in such quantities to satisfy them during equal intervals. Whenever their appetites demand food, whether in the middle of the night or day, it does not matter to them, they appease their hunger. They take their food from earthen basins made by them, or from gourds cut in half.

"They sleep in certain nets made of cotton, very large, suspended in the air. These people are clean and neat in their persons, for they are continually bathing. They live together in common, and make their houses like cottages, which are very strongly built with the largest trees and covered with palm leaves. We found one

which contained six hundred persons, and we saw the occupants of thirteen houses, who must have numbered four thousand souls. New sites for these houses are selected every seven or eight years. When we asked why they changed the location of their dwellings, they said it was because the intense heat of the sun caused painful diseases to spread among them when the ground about their houses became permeated and foul with filth; which explanation seemed quite reasonable

to us.

"The riches of these people are the feathers of birds of different colors, ornaments made of fish bones, and white and green stones, with which they adorn their cheeks, lips, and ears. * Some of these people, when they inter their dead, place water and food at the head of the corpse. In some parts of the country there is a very inhuman custom of disposing of a person about to die. His relatives carry him into a great wood, and, fastening one of their sleeping nets to two trees, put him in it. Having swung him in it during the day, they, at the approach of night, depart to their homes, leaving with him water and food sufficient for his wants during the succeeding five or six days. Should the ill man partake of the provisions and recover sufficient strength to enable him to make his way back to the village, his relatives honor his return with ceremony.