Great Epochs in American History, Volume 1.: Voyages of Discovery and Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682
History
Great Epochs in American History, Volume 1.: Voyages of Discovery and Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682
United States -- History
These Indians ever accompanied us until they delivered us to others;
and all held full faith in our coming from heaven. While traveling, we
went without food all day until night, and we ate so little as to
astonish them. We never felt exhaustion, neither were we in fact at
all weary, so inured were we to hardship. We possest great influence
and authority: to preserve both, we seldom talked with them. The negro
was in constant conversation; he informed himself about the ways we
wished to take, of the towns there were, and the matters we desired to
know.
We passed through many and dissimilar tongues. Our Lord granted us
favor with the people who spoke them, for they always understood us,
and we them. We questioned them, and received their answers by signs,
just as if they spoke our language and we theirs; for, altho we knew
six languages, we could not everywhere avail ourselves of them, there
being a thousand differences.
Throughout all these countries the people who were at war immediately
made friends, that they might come to meet us, and bring what they
possest. In this way we left all the land at peace, and we taught all
the inhabitants by signs, which they understood, that in heaven was a
Man we called God, who had created the sky and earth; Him we worshiped
and had for our Master; that we did what He commanded, and from His
hand came all good; and would they do as we did, all would be well
with them. So ready of apprehension we found them that, could we have
have the use of language by which to make ourselves perfectly
understood, we should have left them all Christians. Thus much we gave
them to understand the best we could. And afterward, when the sun
rose, they opened their hands together with loud shouting toward the
heavens, and then drew them down all over their bodies. They did the
same again when the sun went down. They are a people of good condition
and substance, capable in any pursuit. 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 Corazones. 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account