Although these people adore the heavens and the stars, their religion is not yet sufficiently understood; as for their other customs, the brief time the Spaniards stopped there and the want of interpreters did not allow 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 of them have the most brilliant plumage.  Their wings are green or yellow, but mixed with bluish or purple feathers, presenting a variety which enchants the eye.  I have wished, most illustrious Prince, to give you these details about the parrots; and although the opinion of Columbus[10]