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The country is well settled. We asked them why they did not raise maize, and they replied that they were afraid of losing the crops, since for two successive years it had not rained, and the seasons were so dry that the moles had eaten the corn, so that they did not dare to plant any more until it should have rained very hard. And they also begged us to ask Heaven for rain, which we promised to do. We also wanted to know from where they brought their maize, and they said it came from where the sun sets, and that it was found all over that country, and the shortest way to it was in that direction. We asked them to tell us how to go, as they did not want to go themselves, to tell us about the way.
They said we should travel up the river towards the north, on which trail for seventeen days we would not find a thing to eat except a fruit called chacan, which they grind between stones; but even then it cannot be eaten, being so coarse and dry; and so it was, for they showed it to us and we could not eat it. But they also said that, going upstream, we would always travel among people who were their enemies, although speaking the same language, and who could give us no food, but would receive us very willingly, and give us many cotton blankets, hides and other things; but that it seemed to them that we ought not to take that road.
In doubt as to what should be done, and which was the best and most advantageous road to take, we remained with them for two days. They gave us beans, squashes and calabashes. Their way of cooking them is so new and strange that I felt like describing it here, in order to show how different and queer are the devices and industries of human beings. They have no pots. In order to cook their food they fill a middle-sized gourd with water, and place into a fire such stones as easily become heated, and when they are hot to scorch they take them out with wooden tongs, thrusting them into the water of the gourd, until it boils. As soon as it boils they put into it what they want to cook, always taking out the stones as they cool off and throwing in hot ones to keep the water steadily boiling. This is their way of cooking.
After two days were past we determined to go in search of maize, and not to follow the road to the cows, since the latter carried us to the north, which meant a very great circuit, as we held it always certain that by going towards sunset we should reach the goal of our wishes.
So we went on our way and traversed the whole country to the South Sea, and our resolution was not shaken by the fear of great starvation, which the Indians said we should suffer (and indeed suffered) during the first seventeen days of travel. All along the river, and in the course of these seventeen days we received plenty of cowhides, and did not eat of their famous fruit (chacan) but our food consisted (for each day) of a handful of deer-tallow, which for that purpose we always sought to keep, and so endured these seventeen days, at the end of which we crossed the river and marched for seventeen days more. At sunset, on a plain between very high mountains, we met people who, for one-third of the year, eat but powdered straw, and as we went by just at that time, had to eat it also, until, at the end of that journey we found some permanent houses, with plenty of harvested maize, of which and of its meal they gave us great quantities, also squashes and beans, and blankets of cotton, with all of which we loaded those who had conducted us thither, so that they went home the most contented people upon earth. We gave God our Lord many thanks for having taken us where there was plenty to eat.
Among the houses there were several made of earth, and others of cane matting; and from here we travelled more than a hundred leagues, always meeting permanent houses and a great stock of maize and beans, and they gave us many deer (-hides?) and blankets of cotton better than those of New Spain. They also gave us plenty of beads made out of the coral found in the South Sea; many good turquoises, which they get from the north; they finally gave us all they had; and Dorantes they presented with five emeralds, shaped as arrow-points, which arrows they use in their feasts and dances. As they appeared to be of very good quality, I asked whence they got them from, and they said it was from some very high mountains toward the north, where they traded for them with feather-bushes and parrot-plumes, and they said also that there were villages with many people and very big houses.
Among those people we found the women better treated than in any other part of the Indies as far as we have seen. They wear skirts of cotton that reach as far as the knee, and over them half-sleeves of scraped deerskin, with strips that hang down to the ground, and which they clean with certain roots, that clean very well and thus keep them tidy. The shirts are open in front and tied with strings; they wear shoes.
All those people came to us that we might touch and cross them; and they were so obtrusive as to make it difficult to endure since all, sick and healthy, wanted to be crossed. It happened frequently that women of our company would give birth to children and forthwith bring them to have the sign of the cross made over them and the babes be touched by us. They always accompanied us until we were again in the care of others, and all those people believed that we came from Heaven. What they do not understand or is new to them they are wont to say it comes from above.
While travelling with these we used to go the whole day without food, until night, and then we would eat so little that the Indians were amazed. They never saw us tired, because we were, in reality, so inured to hardships as not to feel them any more. We exercised great authority over them, and carried ourselves with much gravity, and, in order to maintain it, spoke very little to them. It was the negro who talked to them all the time; he inquired about the road we should follow, the villages -- in short, about everything we wished to know. We came across a great variety and number of languages, and God our Lord favored us with a knowledge of all, because they always could understand us and we understood them, so that when we asked they would answer by signs, as if they spoke our tongue and we theirs; for, although we spoke six languages, not everywhere could we use them, since we found more than a thousand different ones. In that part of the country those who were at war would at once make peace and become friendly to each other, in order to meet us and bring us all they possessed; and thus we left the whole country at peace.
We told them, by signs which they understood, that in Heaven there was a man called God, by us, who had created Heaven and earth, and whom we worshipped as our Lord; that we did as he ordered us to do, all good things coming from his hand, and that if they were to do the same they would become very happy; and so well were they inclined that, had there been a language in which we could have made ourselves perfectly understood, we would have left them all Christians. All this we gave them to understand as clearly as possible, and since then, when the sun rose, with great shouting they would lift their clasped hands to Heaven and then pass them all over their body. The same they did at sunset. They are well conditioned people, apt to follow any line which is well traced for them.
In the village where they had given us the emeralds, they also gave Dorantes over six hundred hearts of deer, opened, of which they kept always a great store for eating. For this reason we gave to their settlement the name of "village of the hearts." Through it leads the pass into many provinces near the South Sea, and any one who should attempt to get there by another route must surely be lost, as there is no maize on the coast, and they eat powdered fox-tail grass, straw, and fish, which they catch in the sea in rafts, for they have no canoes. The women cover their loins with straw and grass. They are a very shy and surly people.
We believe that, near the coast, in a line with the villages which we followed, there are more than a thousand leagues of inhabited land, where they have plenty of victuals, since they raise three crops of beans and maize in the year. There are three kinds of deer, one kind as large as calves are in Castilla. The houses in which they live are huts. They have a poison, from certain trees of the size of our apple trees. They need but pick the fruit and rub their arrows with it; and if there is no fruit they take a branch and with its milky sap do the same. Many of those trees are so poisonous that if the leaves are pounded and washed in water near by, the deer, or any other animal that drinks of it burst at once. In this village we stayed three days, and at a day's journey from it was another one, where such a rain overtook us that, as the river rose high, we could not cross it, and remained there fifteen days.
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