Upon The Coast Of The South Sea There Are Great Numbers Of Birds Named _Alcatraz_, Somewhat Like Our Ordinary Poultry In Shape, But So Large That Each Individual May Contain Three Pecks Of Grain In Its Crop.

These birds feed mostly on fish which they catch in the sea, yet are fond of carrion, which they go in search of thirty or forty leagues inland.

The flesh of these birds stinks most abominably, insomuch that some persons who have been driven to the necessity of eating it have died, as if poisoned.

It has been already said, that rain, hail, and snow, fall on the mountainous region of Peru, where in many places it is intensely cold: But in many parts of that region there are deep valleys in which the air is so hot, that the inhabitants have to use various contrivances to defend themselves from the excessive heat. In these vallies there is an herb called _coca_, which is held in very high estimation by the natives: Its leaf resembles that of the _sumach_, and the Indians have learnt from experience that, by keeping a leaf of that plant in their mouth they can prevent themselves for a long time from feeling either hunger or thirst. In many parts of the mountain there is no wood, so that travellers in those parts are obliged to use a species of earth which is found there for the purpose of fuel, and which burns very much like turf or peats. In the mountains there are veins of earth of various colours, and mines both of gold and silver, in which the natives are exceedingly conversant, and are even able to melt and purify these metals with less labour and expence than the Christians. For this purpose they construct furnaces in the mountains, placing always the door of the furnace towards the south, as the wind blows always from that point. The ores are put into these furnaces alternately with dried sheeps dung, which serves as fuel, and by means of the wind the fire is raised to a sufficient power to melt and purify the metal. In melting the vast quantities of silver which has been dug from the mines of Potosi, the furnaces constructed with bellows were found quite inefficient, while these furnaces, named _guayras_ by the Indians, which signifies wind-furnaces, answered the purpose effectually.

The soil is everywhere extremely fertile, and gives abundant returns of all the kinds of grain which are there sown; insomuch that from one bushel of seed for the most part at hundred bushels are reaped, sometimes an hundred and fifty, and even as high as two hundred. The natives employ no ploughs, but labour the earth with a kind of hoes; and set their seed into the ground in holes made with a dibble, or pointed stick, just as beans are sown in Spain. All kinds of pot and garden herbs grow so luxuriantly that radishes have been seen at Truxillo as thick as a mans body, yet neither hard nor stringy.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 289 of 421
Words from 151358 to 151867 of 221091