and the word of God has reached, not a thing has remained that they knew or could tell about, for if from now on for a hundred years they should dig in the courts of the temples of the ancient idols, they would always find idols, because there were so many that they had made: for it happened that when a child was born they made an idol, and the following year (they made) one a little larger, and after four years they made another one, and as the child grew up they went on making idols, and of these (idols) the foundations and walls are filled, and in the courts there are many of them. In the year (15)39 and in the year (15)40 several Spaniards, some with authority and some without it, to show their zeal of the Faith, and thinking that they were accomplishing something (worth while), began to dig and to unearth the dead and to urge the Indians that they should give them idols: and in some parts (of the country) this reached such a stage that the Indians went to look for the idols that were decayed and forgotten in the earth, and some of the Indians were even so sorely tormented that, to tell the truth, they made new idols and gave them (to the Spaniards) that they should cease maltreating them. Mixed with the great zeal they (the Spaniards) showed in searching for idols, (there was) not a little covetousness, and it was because the Spaniards (would say), in such a village, or in such a parish, there are (were) idols of gold, or of chalchihuitl which is a stone of great value, and they imagined that there was an idol weighing ten or fifteen arrobas: but in truth they came (too) late, because all the gold and precious stones were spent and cashed in and safely in the power (hands) of the Spaniards who first held those Indians under their jurisdiction. They also thought of finding an idol of stone which would be worth as much as a city, and certainly, although I have seen many idols which were adored and held highly by the Indians and (were) very (greatly) revered as chief gods, and some were of chalchihuitl, the one which seemed to me to be worth most, I do not think that in Spain they would give ten pesos of gold for it: for this they upset and stir and scandalize the towns with their truly indiscrete zeal, because if there really is still an idol in some village, it is either rotten or so (completely) forgotten or (held or kept) so secretly that in a town of ten thousand inhabitants there are not even five who know it, and they hold them for what they are, either for stones or for wood. Those who thus upset these Indians who go their straight way, are like Laban who went to meet Jacob to look for his property, and to upset his house in search of his idols, because of this that I am telling here I have great experience and I (can) see the deceit in which they go about and the way they have to disturb and disfavor (hurt) these poor Indians who have forgotten so