he spot where he had
left us, and brought five or six of the people. He told us he had
found fixt dwellings of civilization, that the inhabitants lived on
beans and pumpkins, and that he had seen maize. This news the most of
anything delighted us, and for it we gave infinite thanks to our Lord.
Castillo told us the negro was coming with all the population to wait
for us in the road not far off. Accordingly we left, and, having
traveled a league and a half, we met the negro and the people coming
to receive us. They gave us beans, many pumpkins, calabashes, blankets
of cowhide and other things. As this people and those who came with us
were enemies, and spoke not each other's language, we discharged the
latter, giving them what we received, and departed with the others.
Six leagues from there, as the night set in, we arrived at the houses,
where great festivities were made over us. We remained one day, and
the next set out with these Indians. They took us to the settled
habitations of others, who lived upon the same food. From that place
onward was another usage. Those who knew of our approach did not come
out to receive us on the road as the others had done, but we found
them in their houses, and they had made others for our reception. They
were all seated with their faces turned to the wall, their heads down,
the hair brought before their eyes, and their property placed in a
heap in the middle of the house. From this place they began to give us
many blankets of skin; and they had nothing they did not bestow. They
have the finest persons of any people we saw, of the greatest activity
and strength, who best understood us and intelligently answered our
inquiries. We called them the Cow nation, because most of the
cattle[2] killed are slaughtered in their neighborhood, and along up
that river for over fifty leagues they destroy great numbers.

They go entirely naked after the manner of the first we saw. The women
are drest with deer skin, and some few men, mostly the aged, who are
incapable of fighting. The country is very populous. We asked how it
was they did not plant maize. They answered it was that they might not
lose what they should put in the ground; that the rains had failed for
two years in succession, and the seasons were so dry the seed had
everywhere been taken by the moles, and they could not venture to
plant again until after water had fallen copiously. They begged us to
tell the sky to rain, and to pray for