rant, whose Allotment he is,
usually bursts out, as followeth. Let this old Fellow be Damm'd, why do
you bestow him upon me; must I, think you; be at the charge of his
Burial? And this sickly Wretch, how comes he to be one of my alloted
portion must I take care for his cure? Not I. Hence you may guess
what estimate and value the _Spaniards_ put upon _Indians_, and whether
they practise and fulful that Divine and Heavenly precept injoyning
mutual Love and Society.

There can be nothing more cruel and detestable then the Tyrannical
usage of the _Spaniards_ towards the _Indians_ in their Pearl-Fishing;
for the Torments undergone in the unnatural Exenteration and tearing
out with Paracidal hands the richer bowels of our common Mother, or the
inward cruciating racks of the most profligate, Heaven daring
_Desperado_ can admit of no comparison with these, although the
extracting or digging for Gold is one of the sharpest subterranean
Drudgeries, they plunge them down four or five ells deep under Water,
where swimming about without breathing, they eradicate and pull up
Oisters, wherein the Pearls are engendred. Sometimes they rise up to
the superfities of the Water with Nets full of Oisters for respiration
and Air, but if these miserable Creatures stay but a little more then
is Ordinary to rest themselves the Hangman is immediately upon them in
a _Canow_ or small Boat, who beating them with many stripes drag them
by the hair of the head under Water, that they may drudge again at
their expilcation or Pearl Fishing. Their Food is Fish, and the same
which contains the Pearls and _Cassabus_ made of Roots with a few
_Mahids_, the Bread of that Countrey; in the former there is little or
no nutriment or substance, and the other is not made without great
trouble, nor for all this have they a sufficient allowance thereof to
support nature. Their Lodging or Bed is the Earth confined to a pair
of Stocks, for fear that they should run away: And it frequently
happens that they are drown'd with the toil of this kind of Fishing and
never more seen, for the _Tuberoms_ and _Maroxi_ (certain Marine
Monsters that devour a complete proportioned Man wholly at once) prey
upon them under Water. You must consider withall, that it is
impossible for the strongest constitution to continue long under Water
without breathing, and they ordinarily dye through the extream rigor of
the Cold, spitting Blood which is occasioned by the too great
compressi