Page:Narrative of the Proceedings of Pedrarias Davila (Haklyut, 34).djvu/114

66 climate of Panama. The whole is a very beautiful land, with plains, rivers full of fish, and abundant hunting of deer and rabbits. This land, now laid waste, was a most populous and fertile country, abounding in maize, fruit, and ducks. When I arrived, it was so laid waste that there was not a duck fit to breed, to be found throughout the land; and where there were over one hundred thousand houses in the space of these thirty leagues, I did not find ten thousand men. And the principal cause of their destruction was that they received such evil treatment, without having faith kept with them. In Popayan, the Christians never sowed during the whole time they were there, having the crops of the Indians to live on, and they gathered these crops, and turned their pigs and horses into the fields. So the Indians determined not to sow, and there was no maize for eight months, which caused so great a famine that many ate each other, and others died. Belalcazar also took many out of the country.

The few that remained were friendly, and I wished to convert them to our holy faith, and to learn whether they had any religion. They had none whatever, and did not even worship the sun, like those of Cuzco. But they lived according to the law of nature, with great justice, like those of Tierra Firme. The dress of the women was like that of the women of Tierra Firme; but the men wore a garment of cotton of very bright colours, which covered their loins, after the manner of a cloak, from below the arms; only it is short. The first who were converted in Popayan were one hundred of the natives of that land, and fifty of those of Quito, who had come here with the Spaniards. Among them was one chieftainess, and two or three chiefs. They asked me many lively questions, saying, "Why had nothing of this been told them before, for it appeared a good thing?" and "Why, if, as we declared, we had come to give them life and salvation, had we killed many of them with so much