And when they had the response from us, they came quickly, and having stood awhile to look, hearing the noisy clamor of the sailor crowd, sent the Queen with her damsels in a very light barge to stay on a little island distant from us a quarter of a league; himself remaining a very long time, discoursing by signs and gestures of various fanciful ideas, examining all the equipments of the ship, asking especially their purpose, imitating our manners, tasting our foods, then parted from us benignantly.  And one time, our people remaining two or three days on a little island near the ship for various necessities as is the custom of sailors, he came with seven or eight of his attendants, watching our operations, asking many times if we wished to remain there for a long time, offering us his every help.  Then, shooting with the bow, running, he performed with his attendants various games to give us pleasure.

Many times we were from five to six leagues inland, which we found as pleasing as it can be to narrate, adapted to every kind of cultivation—­grain, wine, oil.  Because in that place the fields are from XXV to XXX leagues wide, open and devoid of every impediment of trees, of such fertility that any seed in them would produce the best crops.  Entering then into the woods, all of which are penetrable by any numerous army in any way whatsoever, and whose trees, oaks, cypresses, and others are unknown in our Europe.  We found Lucallian apples, plums, and filberts, and many kinds of fruits different from ours.  Animals there are in very great number, stags, deer, lynx, and other species, which, in the way of the others, they capture with snares and bows, which are their principal arms.  The arrows of whom are worked with great beauty, placing at the end, instead of iron, emery, jasper, hard marble, and other sharp stones, by which they served themselves instead of iron in cutting trees, making their barges from a single trunk of a tree, hollowed with wonderful skill, in which from fourteen to XV men will go comfortably; the short oar, broad at the end, working it solely with the strength of the arms at sea without any peril, with as much speed as pleases them.

Going further, we saw their habitations, circular in form, of XIIII to XV paces compass, made from semi-circles of wood [i.e., arched saplings, bent in the form of an arbor], separated one from the other, without system of architecture, covered with mats of straw ingeniously worked, which protect them from rain and wind.  There is no doubt that if they had the perfection of the arts we have, they would build magnificent edifices, for all the maritime coast is full of blue rocks, crystals and alabaster; and for such cause is full of ports and shelters for ships.  They change said houses from one place to another according to the opulence of the site and the season in which they live.  Carrying away only the mats, immediately they have other habitations made.  There live