The Fields Are
Everywhere Full Of Flowers And Plants Of Infinite Varieties, Among Which
Are Many Species Like The Plants Which Grow In Spain; Such As Cresses,
Lettuce, Succory, Sorrel, Vervain, And Others; And Vast Quantities Of Wild
Mulberries, And Other Fruit-Bearing Shrubs Are Found Everywhere.
There is
one particular plant with yellow flowers, having leaves like those of
celery, of most admirable virtues.
If applied to the most putrid sore, it
makes it quite clean and sweet in a short time; but if laid upon a sound
place it soon eats to the very bone. There are many fruit-trees in this
country of various kinds, carrying abundant crops of fruit as good as
those of Spain without having the smallest care taken of them.
There are great numbers of sheep in the mountainous region, part of which
are domesticated by the Indians, but vast numbers of them are wild;
likewise abundance of deer and roes, many foxes and other smaller animals.
The natives often have public hunts of these animals, which they call
_chaco_, in which they take great delight. Four or five thousand natives,
more or less according to the population of the district, assemble
together, and enclose two or three leagues of country by forming a circle,
in which at first they are at considerable distances from each other, and
by gradually contracting their circle, beating the bushes, and singing
certain songs appropriated to the occasion, they drive all the animals of
every kind before them to an appointed place in the centre. The whole
company at length join in a small circle, holding each other by the hands,
and hallooing loudly, by which the beasts are terrified from endeavouring
to break through, and are easily taken in nets or even by the hand. Even
partridges, hawks, and other birds, are often so astonished by the loud
cries of the hunters as to fall down in the circle and allow themselves to
be taken. In these mountains there are lions or _pumas_, black bears, wild
cats of several kinds, and many species of apes and monkeys. The principal
birds, both of the plain and the mountain, are eagles, pigeons,
turtle-doves, plovers, quails, parroquets, falcons, owls, geese, white and
grey herons, and other water fowl; nightingales and other birds of sweet
song, many kinds of which have very beautiful plumage. There is one kind
of bird very remarkable for its astonishing smallness, not being larger
than a grasshopper or large beetle, which however has several very long
feathers in its tail. Along the coast there is a species of very large
vulture, the wings of which, when extended, measure fifteen or sixteen
palms from tip to tip. These birds often make prey of large seals, which
they attack when out of the water: On these occasions, some of the birds
attack the animal behind; others tear out his eyes; and the rest of the
flock tear him on all sides with their beaks, till at length they kill him,
and tear him to pieces.
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