In These
Places Also They Had Many Human Heads Hung Up; Which By Means Of Certain
Drugs With Which They Were Anointed, Were So Much Shrunk Or Dried Up As To
Be No Bigger Than A Mans Fist[15].
This country is extremely dry, as it very seldom has any rain, and its
rivulets are few and scanty; so that the people are reduced to the
necessity of digging pit-wells, or of procuring water from certain pools
or reservoirs.
Their houses are built of large canes or reeds. It
possesses gold, but of a very low quantity; and has very few fruits. The
inhabitants use small canoes hollowed out of the trunks of trees, and a
sort of rafts which are very flat. The whole coast abounds in fish, and
whales are sometimes seen in these seas. On the doors of the temples in
that district which is called _Caraque_, the figures of men are sometimes
seen, which have dresses somewhat resembling those of our deacons.
Near the last mentioned province, at Cape St Helena in the province of
Guayaquil, there are certain springs or mineral veins which give out a
species of bitumen resembling pitch or tar, and which is applied to the
same purposes. The Indians of that country pretend that in ancient times
it was inhabited by giants, who were four times the height of ordinary
men[16]. The Spaniards saw two representations of these giants at _Puerto
viejo_, one of a man and the other of a woman, and the inhabitants related
a traditionary tale of the descent of a young man from heaven, whose
countenance and body shone like the sun, who fought against the giants and
destroyed them with flames of fire.
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