ground, to prevent them from escaping. 37.37. Many times the Indians throw themselves into the sea while fishing or hunting pearls and never come up again, because dolphins and sharks, which are two kinds of very cruel sea animals that swallow a man whole, kill and eat them. 38.38. From this it may be seen, whether the Spaniards who thus seek profit from the pearls, observe the divine precepts of love to God and one’s neighbour; out of avarice, they put their fellow creatures in danger of death to the body and also to the soul; because they die without faith and without sacraments. 39.39. They lead the Indians such a wretched life that they ruin and waste them in a few days; for it is impossible for men to live much under water without respiration, especially because the cold of the water penetrates their bodies and so they generally all die from hæmorrhages, oppression of the chest caused by staying such long stretches of time without breathing; and from dysentery caused by the frigidity. 40.40. Their hair, which is by nature black, changes to an ashen colour like the skin of seals, and nitre comes out from their shoulders so that they resemble human monsters of some species. 41.41. With this insupportable toil, or rather, infernal trade, the Spaniards completed the destruction of all the Indians of the Lucayan Islands who were there when they set themselves to making these gains; each one was worth fifty and a hundred crowns, and they were sold publicly, although it had been prohibited by the magistrates themselves; it was even more unjust elsewhere for the Lucayans were great swimmers. They have caused the death of numberless others here, from other provinces, and other regions. The Yuyapari River On a river called the Yuyapari, which flows for more than two hundred leagues through the province of Paria, a wretched tyrant(98) sailed a great distance in the year 1539, accompanied by four hundred or more men; and he did very great slaughter, burning alive and putting to the sword numberless innocent and inoffensive people who were in their towns or houses, unsuspicious of danger; and he left immense tracts of country burnt, terrorized, and the inhabitants scattered. He finally died a bad death and his fleet was dispersed. Other tyrants succeeded him and continued this wickedness and tyranny: and to-day they go through those regions destroying, killing, and sending to hell those souls that were redeemed by the son of God with His own blood. The Kingdom of Venezuela