e requiring of them
victuals for their nourishment, and gold whereof to make some pretended
medicine; setting forth, moreover, the belief in one only God, and the
truth of our religion, which they advised them to embrace, whereunto they
also added some threats. To which they received this answer: "That as to
their being peaceable, they did not seem to be such, if they were so.
As to their king, since he was fain to beg, he must be necessitous and
poor; and he who had made him this gift, must be a man who loved
dissension, to give that to another which was none of his own, to bring
it into dispute against the ancient possessors. As to victuals, they
would supply them; that of gold they had little; it being a thing they
had in very small esteem, as of no use to the service of life, whereas
their only care was to pass it over happily and pleasantly: but that what
they could find excepting what was employed in the service of their gods,
they might freely take. As to one only God, the proposition had pleased
them well; but that they would not change their religion, both because
they had so long and happily lived in it, and that they were not wont to
take advice of any but their friends, and those they knew: as to their
menaces, it was a sign of want of judgment to threaten those whose nature
and power were to them unknown; that, therefore, they were to make haste
to quit their coast, for they were not used to take the civilities and
professions of armed men and strangers in good part; otherwise they
should do by them as they had done by those others," showing them the
heads of several executed men round the walls of their city. A fair
example of the babble of these children. But so it is, that the
Spaniards did not, either in this or in several other places, where they
did not find the merchandise they sought, make any stay or attempt,
whatever other conveniences were there to be had; witness my CANNIBALS.
--[Chapter XXX. of Book I.]

Of the two most puissant monarchs of that world, and, peradventure, of
this, kings of so many kings, and the last they turned out, he of Peru,
having been taken in a battle, and put to so excessive a ransom as
exceeds all belief, and it being faithfully paid, and he having, by his
conversation, given manifest signs of a frank, liberal, and constant
spirit, and of a clear and settled understanding, the conquerors had a
mind, after having exacted one million three hundred and twenty-five
tho