De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2): The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'AngheraAnghiera, Pietro Martire d'
History
De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2): The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera
Anghiera, Pietro Martire d'
America -- Early accounts to 1600
The following rivers are found along this part of the coast: the
Acateba, the Quareba, the Zobroba, the Aiaguitin, the Wrida, the
Duribba, and the Veragua. Gold is found everywhere. Instead of cloaks,
the natives wear large leaves on their heads as a protection against
the heat or the rain.
The Admiral afterwards coasted along the shores of Ebetere and
Embigar. Two rivers, Zahoran and Cubigar, remarkable for their volume
and the quantity of fish they contain, water these coasts.
Beyond a distance of fifty leagues, gold is no longer found. Only
three leagues away stands a rock which, as we have already stated in
our description of Nicuesa's unfortunate voyage, the Spaniards called
Penon and which the natives call Vibba.
In the same neighbourhood and about two leagues distant is the bay
Columbus discovered and named Porto Bello. The country, which has
gold and is called by the natives Xaguaguara is very populous but the
inhabitants are naked. The cacique of Xaguaguara paints himself
black, and his subjects are painted red. The cacique and seven of his
principal followers wore leaves of gold in their noses, hanging down
to their lips, and in their opinion no more beautiful ornament exists.
The men cover their sexual organs with a sea-shell, and the women wear
a band of cotton stuff.
There is a fruit growing in their gardens which resembles a
pine-nut;[9]we have elsewhere said that it grows upon a plant,
resembling an artichoke, and that the fruit, which is not unworthy
of a king's table, is perishable; I have spoken elsewhere at length
concerning these. The natives call the plant bearing this fruit
_hibuero_. From time to time crocodiles are found which, when they
dive or scramble away, leave behind them an odour more delicate than
musk or castor. The natives who live along the banks of the Nile
relate the same fact concerning the female of the crocodile, whose
belly exhales the perfumes of Araby.
[Note 9: The pineapple.]
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