In the town where the emeralds were presented to
us, the people gave Dorantes over six hundred open
hearts of deer.' They ever keep a good supply of them
for food, and we called the place Pueblo de los Cora-
zones. It is the entrance into many provinces on the
South sea.^ They who go to look for them and do
not enter there, will be lost. On the coast is no maize :
the inhabitants eat the powder of rush and of straw, and
fish that is caught in the sea from rafts not having
canoes. "With grass and straw the women cover their
nudity.^ They are a timid and dejected people...
We were in this town three days. A day's journey
farther was another town, at which the rain fell heavily
while we were there, and the river became so swollen
we could not cross it, which detained us fifteen days. In
this time Castillo saw the buckle of a sword-belt on the
neck of an Indian and stitched to it the nail of a horse
shoe. He took them, and we asked the native what
they were : he answered that they came from heaven.
"We questioned him further, as to who had brought
them thence : they all responded, that certain men
who wore beards like us, had come from heaven and
arrived at that river; bringing horses, lances, and
swords, and that they had lanced two Indians. In a
manner of the utmost indifference we could feign, we
asked them what had become of those men : they
answered us that they had gone to sea, putting their
lances beneath the water, and going themselves also
under the water; afterwards that they were seen on
the surface going towards the sunset.
For this we gave many thanks to God our Lord. We had before de-
spaired of ever hearing more of Christians. Even yet
we were left in great doubt and anxiety, thinking
those people were merely persons who had come by
sea on discoveries. However, as we had now such
exact information, we made greater speed, and as we
advanced on our way, the news of the Christians con-
tinually grew. We told the natives that we were
going in search of that people, to order them not to kill
nor make slaves of them, nor take them from their
lands, nor do other injustice. Of this the Indians were
very glad.
We passed through many territories and found them
all vacant : their inhabitants wandered fleeing among
the mountains, without daring to have houses or till
the earth for fear of Christians. The sight was one of
infinite pain to us, a land very fertile and beautiful,
abounding in springs and streams, the hamlets deserted
and burned, the people thin and weak, all fleeing or in
concealment.
As they did not plant, they appeased
their keen hunger by eating roots, and the bark of
trees. We bore a share in the famine along the whole
way ; for poorly could these unfortunates provide for
us, themselves being so reduced they looked as though
they would willingly die. They brought shawls of those
they had concealed because of the Christians, present-
ing them to us ; and they related how the Christians, at
other times had come through the land destroying and
burning the towns, carrying away half the men, and
all the women and the boys, while those who had been
able to escape were wandering about fugitives. We
found them so alarmed they dared not remain any-
where. They would not, nor could they till the earth ;
but preferred to die rather than live in dread of such
cruel usage as they received. Although these showed
themselves greatly delighted with us, we feared that
on our arrival among those who held the frontier and
fought against the Christians, they would treat us
badly, and revenge upon us the conduct of their ene-
mies ; but when God our Lord was pleased to bring
us tbere, they began to dread and respect us as the
others had done, and even somewhat more, at which
we no httle wondered. Thence it may at once be
seen, that to bring all these people to be Christians and
to the obedience of the Imperial Majesty, they must
be won by kindness, which is a way certain, and no
other is.