ow full information to be obtained. They eat roots which in
size and form resemble our turnips, but which in taste are similar to
our tender chesnuts. These they call _ages_. Another root which they
eat they call _yucca_; and of this they make bread. They eat the ages
either roasted or boiled, or made into bread. They cut the yucca,
which is very juicy, into pieces, mashing and kneading it and then
baking it in the form of cakes. It is a singular thing that they
consider the juice of the yucca to be more poisonous than that of the
aconite, and upon drinking it, death immediately follows. On the other
hand, bread made from this paste is very appetising and wholesome: all
the Spaniards have tried it. The islanders also easily make bread with
a kind of millet, similar to that which exists plenteously amongst the
Milanese and Andalusians. This millet is a little more than a palm in
length, ending in a point, and is about the thickness of the upper
part of a man's arm. The grains are about the form and size of peas.
While they are growing, they are white, but become black when ripe.
When ground they are whiter than snow. This kind of grain is called
_maiz_.

The islanders set some value on gold and wear it in the form of fine
leaves, fixed in the lobes of their ears and their nostrils. As soon
as our compatriots were certain that they had no commercial relations
with other peoples and no other coasts than those of their own
islands, they asked them by signs whence they procured the gold. As
nearly as could be conjectured, the natives obtain gold from the sands
of the rivers which flow down from the high mountains. This process
was not a difficult one. Before beating it into leaves, they form it
into ingots; but none was found in that part of the island where the
Spaniards had landed. It was shortly afterwards discovered, for when
the Spaniards left that locality and landed at another point to obtain
fresh water and to fish, they discovered a river of which the stones
contained flakes of gold.

With the exception of three kinds of rabbits, no quadruped is found in
these islands. There are serpents, but they are not dangerous. Wild
geese, turtle-doves, ducks of a larger size than ours, with plumage as
white as that of a swan, and red heads, exist. The Spaniards brought
back with them some forty parrots, some green, others yellow, and some
having vermilion collars like the parrakeets of India, as described by
Pliny; and all o