Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/234

210 good buildings, and it contains a great many more people than Granada did when it was taken, and is much better supplied with provisions, such as bread, birds, game, and river-fish, and other good eatables and vegetables. There is a market in this city, in which every day, above thirty thousand souls sell and buy, without counting many other small markets in different parts of the city. Everything is to be found in this market in which they trade, and could need, not only provisions, but also clothing and shoes. There are jewellery shops, for gold, and silver, and stones, and other valuables of feather-work, as well arranged as can be found in any of the squares or market-places of the world; there is also as good earthenware and crockery as the best in Spain. They also sell wood and coals, and herbs to eat, and for medicinal purposes. There are houses like barbers' shops, where they wash their heads and shave themselves; there are also baths. Finally there prevail good order and politeness, for they are a people full of intelligence and understanding, and such that the best in Africa does not equal them. This province contains many extensive and beautiful valleys, well tilled and sown, and none are uncultivated. The province is ninety leagues in circumference, and, as far as I have been able to judge about the form of government, it is almost like that of Venice, or Genoa, or Pisa, because there is no one supreme ruler. There are many lords all living in this city, and the people who are tillers of the soil are their vassals, though each one has his lands to himself, some more than others. In undertaking wars, they all gather together, and thus assembled they decide and plan them. It is believed that they must have some system of justice for punishing the wicked, because one of the natives of this province stole some gold from a Spaniard, and I told this to that Magiscatzin, the greatest lord among them. After making their investigation, they pursued him to