264 TIMBER TREES. 



LID. iv. shippes^ and they hold them as strong as yron. Nolle 1 is a 

 tree of many vertues, which casteth foorth small boughes, 

 whereof the Indians make wine. In Mexico they call it 

 the tree of Peru, for that it came from thence; but it growes 

 also in New Spaine, and better than those in Peru. There 

 are a thousand other trees, which were a superfluous labour 

 to intreate of, whereof some are of an exceeding greatnesse. 

 I will speake only of one which is in Tlacochavaya, three 

 leagues from Gauxa in New Spaine. This tree being 

 measured within, being hollow, was found to have nine 

 fadome, and without, neare to the roote, sixteene, and 

 somewhat higher, twelve. This tree was strooke with 

 lightning from the toppe to the bottome through the heart, 

 the which caused this hollownesse ; they say that before the 

 thunder fell vpon it, it was able to shadow a thousand men, 

 and therefore they did assemble there for theyr daunces and 

 superstitions ; yet to this day there doth remaine some 

 boughes and verdure, but not much. They know not what 

 kinde of tree it is, but they say it is a kind of cedar. Such 

 rim.jib. as s h a li finde this strange, let them reade what Plinie 



xxii, c. 1. 



rcporteth of the plane of Lycia, the hollow whereof con 

 tained foure score foote and one, and seemed rather a 

 cabbin or a house than the hollow of a tree, his boughs like 

 a whole wood, the shaddow whereof covered a great part of 

 tli (3 field. By that which is writen of this tree, we have no 

 great cause to wonder at the weaver, who hadde his 

 dwelling and loome in the hollow of a chesnut tree ; and of 

 another chesnut tree, if it were not the very same, into the 

 hollow whereof there entered eighteene men on horsebacke, 

 and passed out without disturbing one another. The 

 Indians did commonly vse their idolatries in these trees, so 

 strange and deformed, even as did the antient Gentiles, as 

 some writers of those times doe report. 



1 ScJihws Molle. See my translation of G. dc la Vega, i, 187 ; and 

 ii oGl 367. 



