They go entirely naked after the manner of the first we saw.  The women are drest with deer skin, and some few men, mostly the aged, who are incapable of fighting.  The country is very populous.  We asked how it was they did not plant maize.  They answered it was that they might not lose what they should put in the ground; that the rains had failed for two years in succession, and the seasons were so dry the seed had everywhere been taken by the moles, and they could not venture to plant again until after water had fallen copiously.  They begged us to tell the sky to rain, and to pray for it, and we said we would do so.  We also desired to know whence they got the maize, and they told us from where the sun goes down; there it grew throughout the region, and the nearest was by that path....

Two days being spent while we tarried, we resolved to go in search of the maize.  We did not wish to follow the path leading to where the cattle are, because it is toward the north, and for us very circuitous, since we ever held it certain that going toward the sunset we must find what we desired.

Thus we took our way, and traversed all the country until coming out at the South Sea.  Nor was the dread we had of the sharp hunger through which we should have to pass (as in verity we did, throughout the seventeen days’ journey of which the natives spoke) sufficient to hinder us.  During all that time, in ascending by the river, they gave us many coverings of cowhide; but we did not eat of the fruit.  Our sustenance each day was about a handful of deer-suet, which we had a long time been used to saving for such trials.  Thus we passed the entire journey of seventeen days.

As the sun went down, upon some plains that lie between chains of very great mountains, we found a people who for the third part of the year eat nothing but the powder of straw, and, that being the season when we passed, we also had to eat of it, until reaching permanent habitations, where was abundance of maize brought together.  They gave us a large quantity in grain and flour, pumpkins, beans, and shawls of cotton.  With all these we loaded our guides, who went back the happiest creatures on earth.  We gave thanks to God, our Lord, for having brought us where we had found so much food.

Some houses are of earth, the rest all of cane mats.  From this point we marched through more than a hundred leagues of country, and continually found settled domicils, with plenty of maize and beans.  The people gave us many deer and cotton shawls better than those of New Spain, many beads and certain corals found on the South Sea, and fine turquoises that come from the North.  Indeed, they gave us everything they had.  To me they gave five emeralds made into arrow heads, which they use at their singing and dancing.  They appeared to be very precious.  I asked whence they got these; and they said the stones were brought from some lofty mountains that stand toward the north, where were populous towns and very large houses, and that they were purchased with plumes and the feathers of parrots.