To the Most Serene Infanta Dona Ysabela Clara 



Eugenia de Austria. 1 



LADY, The King s Majesty, our Lord, having given me 

 permission to offer to your Highness this small work, 

 entitled The Natural and Moral History of the Indies, it 

 should not be attributed to me as want of consideration, to 

 desire to occupy the time which is so fully spent by your 

 Highness in matters of importance, by diverting it to 

 subjects which, in treating of philosophy, are somewhat 

 obscure, and, as describing barbarous races, may seem out 

 of place. But as a knowledge of, and speculations con 

 cerning the works of nature, especially if they are remarkable 

 and rare, causes a feeling of pleasure and delight in refined 

 understandings, and as an acquaintance with strange cus 

 toms and deeds also pleases from its novelty, I hold that 

 this work may serve as an honest and useful entertainment 

 to your Highness. It will give occasion to consider the 

 works which have been designed by the Most High in the 

 machinery of this world, especially in those parts which we 

 call the Indies, which, being our territory, give us more to 

 consider, and being the abode of new vassals, whom the 

 Most High God has given to the crown of Spain, a know 

 ledge of it is not altogether strange to us. My desire is 

 that, during some spare moments, your Highness should 

 amuse yourself with the reading. With this object it is 



1 Daughter of Philip II, by Elizabeth of Valois, and afterwards wife 

 of the Archduke Albert, and sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands. She 

 was married in 1595, went to Brussels in the following year, and died 

 in 1633, without children. 



c 2 



