The pleasant historie of the conquest of the VVeast India, now called new Spayne: atchieued by the vvorthy Prince Hernando Cortes, marques of the Valley of Huaxacac, most delectable to readeLópez de Gómara, Francisco
History
The pleasant historie of the conquest of the VVeast India, now called new Spayne: atchieued by the vvorthy Prince Hernando Cortes, marques of the Valley of Huaxacac, most delectable to reade
López de Gómara, Francisco
Cortés, Hernán, 1485-1547; Mexico -- History -- Conquest, 1519-1540; Nahuatl language -- Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
A house of Foule, vvhiche vvere onely
_preserued for their feathers_.
_Mvtezuma_ had another house, with very good lodgings and fayre
gallaries, buylt vpö pillers of Iaspe, whiche extendeth towarde a
goodly garden, in the whiche there are ten pondes or moe, some of salte
water for sea foule, & other some of fresh water for riuer foule and
lake foule, which pondes are deuised w^t sluyses to emptie & to fill
at their pleasure for the cleannesse of the feathers. There is such
a number of foule, that scarcely the ponds may holde them, and of
suche diuers kindes bothe in feathers and makyng, as sure it was an
admiration for the Spaniardes to beholde, for the moste of them they
knew not, nor yet had at any tyme séene the lyke. And to euery kynde
of foule they gaue suche bayte as they were wont to féede of in the
fieldes or Riuers. There did belong to that house thrée hundred persons
of seruice: some were to clense the pondes: other some did fishe for
bayte: other some serued them with meate: other did loose them and
trimme theyr feathers: others had care to looke to their egges: others
to sette them abroode: others cured them when they were sicke: and the
principallest office was to plucke the feathers: for of them was made
riche Mantels, Tapissarie, Targattes, Tuffes of feathers, and many
other things wrought with Golde and Siluer: a most perfite worke.
A house of foule for havvking and other
_straunge things_.
There is another house with large quarters & lodgings, which is called
a house for foule, not bycause there are more thä in the other, but
bycause they bee bigger and to hauke withal, and are foule of rapine,
wherfore they are estéemed as more nobler than al the others.
There are in this house many high halles, in the whiche are kept men,
women and Children: in some of them are kept suche as are borne white
of colour, which doth very seldome happen: in other some are dwarfes,
crokebackes, burstenmen, counterfaites, and monstrous persons, in
greate number: they say that they vsed to deforme them when they were
children, to sette forth the kings greatnesse: euery of these persons
were in seuerall Halles by themselues.
In the lower Halles were greate Cages made of Tymber: in some of them
were Lyons, in other Tygres, in other Ownzes, in others Wolues: in
conclusion, there was no foure footed beaste that wanted there, onely
to the effect that the mightie _Mutezuma_ might say that hee had such
things in his house.
They were fed with their ordinary, as Gynea cockes, Deare, Dogges, and
such like.
There was also in other Halles great Earthen vessels, some with earth,
and some with water, wherin were snakes, as grosse as a mans thigh,
Vipers, Crocodrilles, whiche they cal _Caymanes_, or _Lizarts_ of
twenty foote long, wyth suche Scales and head as a Dragon hathe: Also
other little Lisarts, and other venemous beastes and Serpentes as well
of the water as of the land, a terrible sight for the lokers on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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