The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 14: America, Part IIIHakluyt, Richard
History
The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 14: America, Part III
Hakluyt, Richard
Discoveries in geography -- English; Voyages and travels
cotton wooll. [Sidenote: Store of Turqueses.] They weare their haire on
their heads like those of Mexico, and they are well nurtured and
condicioned: And they haue Turqueses I thinke good quantitie, which with
the rest of the goods which they had, except their corne, they had
conueyed away before I came thither: for I found no women there, nor no
youth vnder fifteene yeeres olde, nor no olde folkes aboue sixtie,
sauing two or three olde folkes, who stayed behinde to gouerne all the
rest of the youth and men of warre. There were found in a certaine paper
two poynts of Emralds, and certaine small stones broken which are in
colour somewhat like Granates very bad, and other stones of Christall,
which I gaue one of my seruants to lay vp to send them to your lordship,
and hee hath lost them as hee telleth me. We found heere Guinie cockes,
but fewe. The Indians tell mee in all these seuen cities, that they eate
them not, but that they keepe them onely for their feathers. I beleeue
them not, for they are excellent good, and greater then those of Mexico.
The season which is in this countrey, and the temperature of the ayre is
like that of Mexico: or sometime it is hotte, and sometime it raineth;
but hitherto I neuer sawe it raine, but once there fell a little showre
with winde, as they are woont to fell in Spaine.
[Sidenote: Gomora hist. gen. Cap. 213. sayth that the colde is by reason
of the high mountaines.] The snow and cold are woont to be great, for so
say the inhabitants of the Countrey: and it is very likely so to bee,
both in respect to the maner of the Countrey, and by the fashion of
their houses, and their furres and other things which this people have
to defend them from colde. There is no kind of fruit nor trees of
fruite. The Countrey is all plaine, and is on no side mountainous:
albeit there are some hillie and bad passages. There are small store of
Foules: the cause whereof is the colde, and because the mountains are
not neere. Heere is no great store of wood, because they haue wood for
their fuell sufficient foure leagues off from a wood of small Cedars.
There is most excellent grasse within a quarter of a league hence, for
our horses as well to feede them in pasture, as to mow and make hay,
whereof wee stoode in great neede, because our horses came hither so
weak and feeble. The victuals which the people of this countrey haue, is
Maiz, whereof they haue great store, and also small white Pease: and
Venison, which by all likelyhood they feede vpon, (though they say no)
for wee found many skinnes of Deere, of Hares, and Conies. They eate the
best cakes that euer I sawe, and euery body generally eateth of them.
They haue the finest order and way to grinde that we euer saw in any
place. And one Indian woman of this countrey will grinde as muche as
foure women of Mexico. They have most excellent salte in kernell, which
they fetch from a certaine lake a dayes iourney from hence. [Sidenote:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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