ural to it, which it feeds upon when wild. Thus fish is given to
birds that usually eat it; worms, maize and the finer seeds, to such as
prefer them. And I assure Your Highness, that to the birds accustomed
to eat fish, there is given the enormous quantity of ten arrobas[5]
every day, taken in the salt lake. The emperor has three hundred men
whose sole employment is to take care of these birds; and there are
others whose only business is to attend to the birds that are in bad
health.

Over the pools for the birds there are corridors and galleries to which
Muteczuma resorts, and from which he can look out and amuse himself
with the sight of them. There is an apartment in the same palace, in
which are men, women, and children, whose faces, bodies, hair,
eyebrows, and eyelashes are white from birth. The cacique has another
very beautiful palace, with a large courtyard, paved with handsome
flags, in the style of a chess-board. There were also cages, about
nine feet in height and six paces square, each of which was half
covered with a roof of tiles, and the other half had over it a wooden
grate, skilfully made. Every cage contains a bird of prey, of all the
species {160} found in Spain, from the kestrel to the eagle, and many
unknown there. There were a great number of each kind, and in the
covered part of the cages there was a perch, and another on the outside
of the grating, the former of which the birds used in the night-time,
and when it rained; and the other enabled them to enjoy the sun and
air. To all these birds fowl were daily given for food, and nothing
else. There were in the same palace several large halls on the ground
floor, filled with immense cages built of heavy pieces of timber, well
put together, in all or most of which were kept lions, tigers, wolves,
foxes and a variety of animals of the cat tribe, in great numbers,
which were also fed on fowls. The care of these animals and birds was
assigned to three hundred men. There was another palace that contained
a number of men and women of monstrous size, and also dwarfs, and
crooked and ill-formed persons, each of which had their separate
apartments. These also had their respective keepers. As to the other
remarkable things that the ruler had in his city for amusement, I can
only say that they were numerous and of various kinds.

He was served in the following manner. Every day as soon as it was
light, six hundred nobles and men of rank were in