marks of honor reserved for the valiant. These no one could assume who had not slain a human being, no matter whom. They had received the command to do thus from the devil, under penalty of death to whoever should assume these marks of honor without having slain another. In this way he incited them to that which he most desired, which is to shed human blood, to slay the body, and to carry off the soul to hell. In fine, their vices were such as may be inferred from what has been said. They were a people abandoned by the hand of God and governed by the devil in accordance with his laws--without judgment, or reason, or sense, because their minds had been wholly taken away by him who had governed them. In particular they were extremely vengeful, proud, envious, extraordinarily avaricious, and given to shameless and unbridled lewdness. Above all, they were drunkards from the greatest to the least, and each of their drunken feasts surpassed all the others. From this vice all the other vices followed in a troop, as if they were leagued with it; and this drunkenness was continuous, and excessive. They were a heathen race, with no supernatural light, though it was at hand; and their natural light was so darkened and falsified by the devil that they regarded that person as happiest who could indulge the most in these vices. All of them took pleasure therein, and were grieved when, as happened at times, they could not commit them; they envied him who had gone furthest in them, for they regarded him as the most powerful--as indeed it was generally true that the man who had the greatest power was the most vicious. As for their marriages, they came to an end as soon as the husband was vexed with his wife, or the wife with her husband. This was all that was needed on either side, to cause them to separate and to make a new marriage, unless they had children; for they loved their children so much that this tie was sufficient to keep them from separating, and to make them bear with each other. The reason that influenced them was their desire not to be parted from their children, or to grieve them. As wives, the men were allowed to have those to whom they could give a dowry, for it is the husband that gives the dowry. But if the first wife belonged to a chief's family she would not consent to have her husband marry anyone of a rank below her own; and if the first wife was not of this rank the husband could not find any woman of high birth who would afterward marry him--except in some very unusual case, as when he was very powerful or very valiant. To their equals in rank the husbands gave large dowries, which were practically in the power of the fathers and kinsfolk of the woman. On the other hand, if they married women below them in rank, they did not endow them. Further, if, as has been said, equals separated from each other as a result of any quarrel or dislike, and afterward the man wished the woman to