90 THEIR SINGULAR APPEARANCE. 



a mile and never trod a step off a dead human 

 body. These bodies, to appearance, seemed as 

 if they had not been above a week dead_, but if 

 you handled them they proved as dry and light 

 as a sponge, or a piece of cork. After we had 

 been some time ashore, we espied a smoke, and 

 making up to it, found an old man, a Spanish 

 Indian, who was ranging along the sea-side to 

 find some sea-weeds to dress some fish which 

 his companions had caught, for he belonged to 

 a fishing-boat hard by. We asked him many 

 questions in Spanish, about the place, and how 

 ^hose dead bodies came there. To which he 

 returned for answer, that in his father's time, 

 the soil there, which now yielded nothing, was 

 green, well cultivated, and fruitful ; that the 

 city of Wormia had been well inhabited by 

 Indians, and that they were so numerous that 

 they could have handed a fish from hand to hand 

 twenty leagues from the sea until it had come to 

 the Inca's hands ; and that the reason of those 

 dead bodies was, that when the Spaniards came 



