stinking liquor from their mouths.  From the rivers La Plata and Lima, or Rimac, inclusively to the southwards, there are no crocodiles, lizards, snakes, or other venomous reptiles; but the rivers produce great store of excellent fish.  On the coast of St Michael on the South Sea, there are many rocks of salt, covered with eggs.  At the point of St Helena, there are springs from which a liquor flows, that serves instead of pitch and tar.  It is said that there is a fountain in Chili which converts wood into stone.  In the haven of Truxillo, there is a lake of fresh water, the bottom of which is good hard salt; and in the Andes, beyond Xauxa, there is a fresh water river which flows over a bottom of white salt.  It is also affirmed that there formerly dwelt giants in Peru, of whom statues were found at Porto Vejo; and that their jaw bones were found in the haven of Truxillo, having teeth three or four fingers long.

In the year 1540, the viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoca, sent Ferdinando Alorchon with two ships, to explore the bottom of the gulph of California, and divers other countries.  In the same year, Gonsalvo Pizarro went from Quito to discover the Cinnamon country, of which there ran a great fame in Peru.  Taking with him a force of 200 Spaniards, partly horse and part foot, with 300 Indians to carry the baggage, he marched to Guixos, the most distant place or frontier of the empire of the Incas; in which place there happened a great earthquake, accompanied with much rain and dreadful lightning, by which seventy houses were swallowed up.  From that place they passed over a chain of cold and snowy mountains, where they found many Indians frozen to death, and they wondered much at finding so much snow immediately under the equinoctial line.  From thence they proceeded to a province called Cumaco, where they were detained two months on account of constant rain; and beyond this, they came to the cinnamon trees, which are of great size, with leaves resembling those of the bay tree.  The leaves, branches, roots, and every part of this tree, tasted like cinnamon, but this taste and flavour was particularly strong in the root; yet that was still stronger in certain knobs, like alcornoques, or acorns, which were good merchandize.  This appears to have been of the same nature with wild cinnamon, of which there is great abundance in the East Indies, particularly in the island of Jaoa, or Java.  From this cinnamon country, they proceeded onwards to the province and city of Coca, where they halted for fifty days; after which they travelled for sixty leagues along a river, without being able to find any bridge or ford at which they could pass over.  In one place they found this river to form a cataract of 200 fathoms in perpendicular fall, making such a noise as was almost sufficient to deafen any person who stood near.  Not far beyond this fall, the river was found to glide in a smooth channel, worn out of the rock; and at this