of the country, and a cellar stacked with earthenware barrels and wooden kegs, as in Spain, or Italy.  These receptacles contained excellent wine, not of the kind made from grapes, for they have no vineyards, but such as they make from three kinds of roots and the grain they use for making bread, called, as we have said in our first book, yucca, ages, and maize; they likewise use the fruit of the palm-trees.  The Germans, Flemings and English, as well as the Spanish mountaineers in the Basque provinces and the Asturias, and the Austrians, Swabians, and Swiss in the Alps make beer from barley, wheat, and fruits in the same manner.  The Spaniards report that at Comogra they drank white and red wines of different flavours.

Attend now, Sovereign Pontiff, to another and horrifying sight.  Upon entering the cacique’s inner apartments the Spaniards found a room filled with bodies suspended in cotton ropes.  They inquired the motive of this superstitious custom, and were informed that they were the bodies of the ancestors of Comogre, which were preserved with great care, according to the rank they had occupied in life; respect for the dead being part of their religion.  Golden masks decorated with stones were placed upon their faces, just as ancient families rendered homage to the Penates.  In my first book I explained how they dry these bodies by stretching them on grid-irons with a slow fire beneath, in such a way that they are reduced to skin and bone.

The eldest of the seven sons of Comogre was a young man of extraordinary intelligence.  In his opinion it was wiser to treat those Spanish vagabonds kindly, and to avoid furnishing them any pretext for the violent acts they had committed on neighbouring tribes.  He therefore presented four thousand drachmas of wrought gold and seventy slaves to Vasco Nunez and Colmenares, as they were the leaders.  These natives sell and exchange whatever articles they need amongst themselves, and have no money.  The Spaniards were engaged in the vestibule of Comogre, weighing his gold and another almost equal quantity they had obtained elsewhere.  They wished to set aside the fifth belonging to the royal treasury; for it has been decided that the fifth part of all gold, silver, and precious stones shall be set aside for the King’s agents.  The remainder is divided according to agreement.  Several disputes arose among the Spaniards regarding their shares.  The eldest son of Comogre, the wise youth, who was present, struck the scales with his fist and scattered the gold in all directions, and calling our men’s attention he spoke in choice language as follows: