"Leaving this place, we sailed about eighty leagues along the coast and entered a bay, where we found a surprising number of people, with whom we formed a friendship. Many of us went to their village, in great safety, and were received with much courtesy and confidence. In this place we procured a hundred and fifty pearls (as they sold them to us for a trifle) and some little gold, which they gave us gratuitously. We noticed that in this country they drank wine made of their fruits and seeds, which looked like beer, both white and red; the best was made from acorns, and was very good. We ate a great many of these acorns and found them a very good fruit, savory to the taste and healthy to the body. The country abounded with means of nourishment, and the people were well disposed and pacific. "We remained at this port seventeen days, with great pleasure, and every day some new tribe of people came to see us from inland parts of the country, who were greatly surprised at our figures, at the whiteness of our skins, at our clothes, at our arms, and the form and size of our ships. We were informed by them of the existence of another tribe, still farther west, who were their enemies, and that they had great quantities of pearls. They said that those which they had in their possession were some they had taken from this other tribe in war. They told us how they fished for pearls, and in what manner they grew, and we found that they told us the truth--as your excellency shall hear. "Sailing along the coast again, and finding an island about fifteen leagues from it at sea, we resolved to see if it were inhabited. We found on this island the most bestial and filthy people that were ever seen, but at the same time extremely pacific, so that I am able to describe their habits and customs. Their manners and their faces were filthy, and they all had their cheeks stuffed full of a green herb which they were continually chewing, as beasts chew the cud, so that they were scarcely able to speak. Each one of them wore, hanging at the neck, two dried gourd-shells, one of which was filled with the same kind of herb they had in their mouths, and the other with a white meal, which appeared to be chalk-dust. They also carried with them a small stick, which they wetted in their mouths from time to time and then put in the meal, afterwards putting it into the herb with which both cheeks were filled, and mixing the meal with it. We were surprised at their conduct, and could not understand for what purpose they indulged in the strange practice.