The Authors advertisement to the Reader. 



MANY have written sundry bookes and discourses of the 

 New World at the West Indies, wherein they describe new 

 and strange things discovered in those partes, with the 

 actes and adventures of the Spaniards, which have con 

 quered and peopled those Countries. But hitherto I have 

 not seene any other Author which treates of the causes and 

 reasons of these novelties and wonders of nature, or that 

 hath made any search thereof. Neither have I read any 

 booke which maketh mention of the histories of the antient 

 Indians and naturall inhabitants of the New World. In 

 truth, these two things are difficult. The first being the 

 works of Nature, contrarie to the antient and received 

 Philosophy, as to shew that the region which they call the 

 burning Zone is very moist, and in many places very tem 

 perate, and that it raines there, whenas the Sunne is neerest, 

 with such like things. For such as have written of the 

 West Indies have not made profession of so deepe Philoso 

 phic ; yea, the greatest part of those Writers have had no 

 knowledge thereof. The second thing it treats of is, of the 

 proper historic of the Indians, the which required much 

 conference and travaile among the Indians themselves : the 

 which most of them that have treated of the Indies could 

 not doe, either not vnderstanding the language or not 

 curious in the search of their Antiquities ; so as they 

 have beene contented to handle those things which have 

 beene most common and superficial!. Desiring, therefore, 

 to have some more particular knowledge thereof, I have 



