These people were and still are very sagacious, and keen in traffic and bargaining, and in buying and selling; and they applied themselves to all gainful pursuits--and not least to agriculture and to the breeding of animals, regularly carried on for the profits thus made. They have not only great harvests of rice (which is their ordinary bread), but also crops of cotton, with which they clothe themselves, and from which they manufacture quantities of cloths, which were, and are yet, much esteemed in Nueva Espana. For this reason, the Spaniards regarded them as a people from whom large profits might be gained, and they were not mistaken, for, from the gains on cotton fabrics alone (which there they call _lompotes_), one encomendero left an estate of more than one hundred and fifty thousand pesos in a few years. The soil is not only good and favorable with a sunny climate, but fertile and rich. Besides possessing many gold mines and placers--of which they make but small account, because of the China silks which bring them more profit--they raise fowls in great abundance. Besides the domestic fowls, which are most numerous and very cheap, the fields are full of wild ones. There is an infinite number of domestic swine, not to mention numberless mountain-bred hogs, which are very fat, and as good for lard as the domestic breed. There are also many goats which breed rapidly, bearing two kids at a time and twice yearly; there are entire islands abounding with them. As to the buffaloes, there called carabaos, there are beside the tame and domestic breed, many mountain buffaloes, which are used [as food] the same as those in Europe--although somewhat less ugly in appearance, and with singularly large horns, three times the size of those of our breed. They have remarkable skill in striking with these horns; lowering the beard to the breast, with the point of the horn they lift up the most minute object. In spite of these formidable qualities both Indians and Spaniards hunt and slay them. Their flesh, whether fresh or dried, is as good as the most excellent beef. Deer are so abundant that the Japanese import cargoes of their hides from these islands. The sea abounds in all kinds of delicate fish; trees, fruits, vegetables, and garden-stuff are abundant--especially bananas, of which there are as many different kinds as in Europe there are varieties of apples and other fruits. There are six or eight species of orange, the most famous of which is an orange as big as a large-sized melon or gourd. Some of these are white inside, like limes; others are as red as our oranges are yellow; and all kinds are as well-flavored as bunches of delicate grapes. In general, the fruits of those regions, although different from ours in species and form, have much the same flavor as the European fruits. The palms, of which there are many and varied species, are the vineyards and olive-orchards of that country. For beside the many other uses and advantages of this tree,