esert. On Wednesday the 21. of the
moneth he came to a towne called Toalli. And from thence forward there was
a difference in the houses. For those which were behind vs were thatched
with straw, and those of Toalli were couered with reeds in manner of
tiles. These houses are verie cleanly. Some of them had walles daubed with
clay, which shewed like a mudwall. In all the cold countrie the Indians
haue euery one a house for the winter daubed with clay within and without,
and the doore is very little: they shut it by night, and make fire within;
so that they are in it as warme as in a stoue: and so it continueth all
night that they need not clothes: and besides these, they haue others for
summer; and their kitchins neere them, where they make fire and bake their
bread: and they haue barbacoas wherein they keepe their Maiz; which is an
house set vp in the aire vpon foure stakes, boorded about like a chamber,
and the floore of it is of cane hurdles. The difference which Lords or
principall mens houses haue from the rest, besides they be greater, is,
that they haue great galleries in their fronts, and vnder them seates made
of canes in manner of benches: and round about them they haue many lofts,
wherein they lay vp that which the Indians doe giue them for tribute,
which is Maiz, Deeres skins, and mantles of the Countrie, which are like
blankets: they make them of the inner rinde of the barke of trees, and
some of a kind of grasse like vnto nettles, which being beaten, is like
vnto flaxe. The women couer themselues with these mantles; they put one
about them from the wast downeward; and another ouer their shoulder, with
their right arme out, like vnto the Egyptians. The men weare but one
mantle vpon their shoulders after the same manner: and haue their secrets
hid with a Deeres skin, made like a linen breech, which was wont to be
vsed in Spaine. The skins are well corried, and they giue them what colour
they list, so perfect, that if it be red, it seemeth a very fine cloath in
graine, and the blacke is most fine: and of the same leather they make
shooes; and they die their mantles in the same colours. The Gouernour
departed from Toalli the 24. of March: he came on Thursday at euening to a
small Riuer, where a bridge was made whereon the people passed, and Benit
Fernandez a Portugall fell off from it, and was drowned. Assoone as the
Gouernour had passed the Riuer, a little distance thence he found a towne
called Achese. The India