A.D. 

 1572. 



Sugar y con- 

 serves. 



Description of 

 the Indians 

 person and 

 maners. 



The people of 

 Nueva Es- 

 panna great 

 cowards. 



THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



officers dealt in like order as they did with the two 

 poore men that found the rich mine, taking it quite 

 from the shepheard : but when they went to fetch home 

 the quicke-silver, or part thereof, they could never finde 

 it againe. So these things have bene declared unto the 

 king, who hath given commandement, that nothing 

 being found in the fields, as mines, and such like, shall 

 be taken away from any man. And many other things 

 have bene done in this countrey, which men might 

 count for great marvels. 



There is great abundance of sugar here, & they 

 make divers conserves, & very good, and send them 

 into Peru, where as they sell them marvellous well, be- 

 cause they make none in those parts. 



The people of the countrey are of a good stature, 

 tawny coloured, broad faced, flat nosed, and given much 

 to drinke both wine of Spaine and also a certeine kind 

 of wine which they make with hony of Magueiz, and 

 roots, and other things which they use to put into the 

 same. They call the same wine Pulco. They are 

 soone drunke, and given to much beastlinesse, and 

 void of all goodnesse. In their drunkennesse they use 

 and commit Sodomy ; and with their mothers and 

 daughters they have their pleasures and pastimes. Where- 

 upon they are defended from the drinking of wines, upon 

 paines of money, aswell he that selleth the wines as the 

 Indian that drinketh the same. And if this commande- 

 ment were not, all the wine in Spaine and in France were 

 not sufficient for the West Indies onely. 



They are of much simplicity, and great cowards, voide 

 of all valour, and are great witches. They use divers 

 times to talke with the divell, to whom they do certeine 

 sacrifices and oblations : many times they have bene 

 taken with the same, and I have seene them most cruelly 

 punished for that offence. 



The people are given to learne all maner of occupa- 

 tions and sciences, which for the most part they learned 

 since the comming of the Spanyards : I say all maner of 



386 



