tercourse with those of Saba; and in fact they know
nothing of any place outside their own country. In addition to the
gold and the incense, they presented peacocks such as are not found
elsewhere, for they differ largely from ours in the variety of their
colours. The hens were alive, for they kept them to propagate the
species, but the cocks, which they brought in great numbers, were
dressed to be immediately eaten. They likewise offered cotton stuffs,
similar to tapestries, for household decoration, very tastefully made
in various colours. These stuffs were fringed with golden bells such
as are called in Italy _sonaglios_ and in Spain _cascabeles_. Of
talking parrots, they gave as many of different colours as were
wanted; these parrots are as common in Paria as pigeons or sparrows
are amongst us.

All the natives wear cotton clothing, the men being covered to the
knees, and the women to the calves of their legs. In time of war the
men wear a carefully quilted coat of cotton, doubled in the Turkish
style. I have used the word cotton for what I have otherwise called in
the vulgar Italian _bombasio_. I have also used other analogous terms
which certain Latinists, dwelling along the Adriatic or Ligurian
coasts, may attribute to my negligence or ignorance, when my writings
reach them,[3] as we have seen in the case of my First Decade which
was printed without my authorisation. I would have them know that I
am a Lombard, not a Latin; that I was born at Milan,[4] a long way
distant from Latium, and have lived my life still farther away, for I
reside in Spain. Let those purists of Venice or Genoa who accuse me of
improprieties of composition because I have written as one speaks
in Spain of brigantines and caravels, of admiral and adelantado,
understand, once for all, that I am not ignorant that he who holds
these offices is called by the Hellenists _Archithalassus_ and by the
Latinists sometimes _Navarchus_ and sometimes _Pontarchus_. Despite
all such similar comments, and provided I may nourish the hope of not
displeasing Your Holiness, I shall confine myself to narrating these
great events with simplicity. Leaving these things aside, let us now
return to the caciques of Paria.

[Note 3: Peter Martyr was not ignorant of the jibes his Latin
evoked amongst the purists in Rome. The cultivated tympanum of
Cardinal Bembo and other Ciceronians at the Pontifical Court received
painful shocks from certain corrupt expressions in hi