WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES — VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 259 



up many other instances to this efifect, but these must suffice ; let us 

 describe the remainder of the Diocese of Nicaragua. 



Chapter XXX 



Of the Corregimiento of Monimbo and Villages in Its District, 

 and of the Corregimiento of Los Chontales. 



744. After leaving the city, although the whole province enjoys 

 the climate described above, there is no stream before the city of 

 Granada. On the way, at 9 leagues from Leon, is the Indian village 

 of Nagarote ; continuing 4 leagues farther and descending a steep 

 grade, one reaches the village of Mateare de las Mojarras, which is 

 built on the shores of the Laguna de Leon. This is called the village 

 of the mojarras because of the large quantity of these fish which 

 are caught in the lake ; they sell them 18 or 20 for a real ; they are 

 the size of bream. It happened that while I was there in the year 

 1621, an Indian woman went down to the lake with a jar for some 

 water ; she was seized by one of those ferocious alligators or caymans 

 of which the lake is full, and it ate her up, although, as appeared 

 later, others helped in this task. When the woman failed to return, 

 her husband suspected the misfortune or calamity which might have 

 taken place, and went in search of his wife, arriving at the moment 

 when those fierce creatures finished devouring her. Returning to the 

 village in grief and anguish at this terrible misfortune, he described 

 the dreadful event to his relatives, friends, and neighbors ; they all 

 combined to go and take vengeance. They cut up a quarter of beef 

 into pieces ; then, taking chunks of tough wood the thickness of 

 one's arm and about f of a vara long, they tied pieces of meat to 

 them with a rope and cast them out into the lake ; and as the fierce 

 animals were ravenous and excited, they rushed to the bait, and so 

 they caught many of them ; then they killed them, and slashing them 

 open on the sides, from one they took a leg, from another an arm, 

 from another a piece of the body, from another the head ; and so 

 this good Francisco (for that was the Indian's name) put together 

 the fragments of his deceased wife, taking them out of the stomachs 

 of those fierce aquatic animals, after killing many of them in revenge 

 for his wife's death ; and when they had united all the pieces, they 

 buried her in their church, and held her funeral there and had Mass 

 said for her ; and it was I who said Mass for her, because I happened 

 to be staying there. I have described this occurrence because of its 

 strange and unique character, and to show the ferocity of these 

 creatures, and the ease with which the Indians capture and kill them. 



