Several Rivers abounding with Fish fall also into the same, having their Banks set all along with Trees, in whose Boughs, joyn’d together on the top, those sort of Birds make their Nests which prey on Fish.
The Women in this place are much shorter Liv’d than the Men, so that there are often thirty Widowers to one Widow. Women with Child are Deliver’d by themselves in the High-way; and from thence they go to the next River to wash themselves and the Child.
Places of note.
As for any Towns or Places of much Traffick or Note, inhabited by the Spaniards, we find not any nam’d, save onely St. Augustines; near unto which there is said to be a Cave and Fountain within Ground, which converts the Water that falleth into it out of several lesser Springs, into a kind of Alabaster or Stone, perfectly white, and fashions it likewise into Pillars, Statues, and other artificial Forms of very curious Workmanship, as Laet reporteth.
Sect. III.
Honduras.
Situation and Bounds.
Honduras hath on the South, Guatimala abovesaid; on the West, a certain Bay, or Arm of the Sea, which they call Golfo Dulce, from the abundance of fresh Waters which run into it from all Parts; on the North and North-East, the Atlantick Ocean; and somewhat to the South-East, Nicaragua. It contains in length, viz. from East to West, Coasting along upon the Sea, about a hundred and fifty Leagues, and in breadth eighty. The Countrey is rich both in Corn and Pasturage, being said to be very much advantag’d that way by the constant overflowings of the Rivers, which are very many, about Michaelmass-time, and which the People order so well, that they water their Gardens, and exceedingly fertilize the whole Champain, or lower part of the Grounds by them.
The fruitful Valleys of this Countrey were anciently very well inhabited, till vast multitudes of the Natives were destroy’d by the Spaniards Cruelties, of which the Bishop Bartholomeo de las Casas, in his Letter to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, gives this Relation:
Cruelties of the Spaniards.
“The young Children (saith he) they murder’d, beating out their Brains against the Stones; the Kings and Princes of the Countrey they either scorch’d to death, or threw them to the Dogs to be torn in pieces; the poor People they drove into their Houses, and then set them on fire; those that remain’d were condemn’d to the greatest slavery imaginable, being us’d in stead of Mules and Horses, and having greater Burdens laid upon them than they were able to carry, insomuch that thousands of them fell down dead under them; some out of despair running into the Woods were famish’d, after they had kill’d and eat their Wives and Children for Hunger. In this one Province onely they massacred above twenty hundred thousand Men, and amongst others, Persons of Quality, which had civilly Entertain’d them: nay, they tortur’d the poor innocent Natives all the ways they could possibly invent, onely to know of them where their Gold lay; particularly Diego de Valasco spar’d none that ever fell into his hands; insomuch that in a Moneths time above ten thousand were slain by him: He hang’d thirteen Noble-men, to twelve of whom he gave the Denomination of The twelve Apostles; and the chiefest of them he call’d in a derision, Jesus Christ. Some they suffer’d to starve to death, with their Heads compress’d between the cloven Barks of wild Vines; some also they buried alive, and leaving onely their Heads to appear above Ground, bowl’d Iron Bullets at them, and forc’d them to eat one another; besides infinite other hellish Cruelties, too horrid and dreadful to be recounted.”