do, and remarked to him:
"This is a good opportunity, father, to give these people some notion of
our holy religion through our interpreters." This father Olmedo
accordingly did in a manner which would have done honour to the greatest
of theologians. He first of all explained that we were Christians, and
then expatiated on the whole substance of our belief; he then proved
that their idols were useless things, evil spirits, which fled away from
the presence of the cross. On such a cross, he continued, the Lord of
heaven and earth suffered death, we believed in him only, and prayed to
him as the only true God, Jesus Christ, who suffered death for the
salvation of the human race; who rose again on the third day, and
ascended into heaven, that he would again appear to hold judgment over
the living and the dead. Upon this followed everything that was
edifying, which the Indians comprehended well, and which they assured us
they would relate to their monarch.

Cortes then explained to them, that among the many reasons which had
induced our great emperor to send us here, one was that they should
abandon for ever the religion of their cursed idols, abolish human
sacrifices, and abstain from kidnapping. He, therefore, must beg of them
to erect crosses like this in their towns and on their temples, and also
the figure of the holy Virgin, with her most excellent Son, then God
would bestow great blessings on them. In short, there were many
expressions replete with excellent feeling, which I am unable wholly to
report, and therefore will rather leave in my pen.

Our men now commenced to barter with the Indians, who had arrived with
Teuthlille for what they had brought, and obtained various kinds of
things, all of inferior gold, which we gave to our sailors for catching
us fish; this was the only means we had of stilling our hunger. Cortes
was well aware of this, and secretly enjoyed the idea; however, the
creatures of Diego Velasquez drew his attention to it, and thought he
ought not to permit such a species of traffic. We shall further see what
happened on this account.

[17] Chalchihuitls; Bernal Diaz calls these Chalchuites. This stone is
of a light green colour, at first held in great estimation by the
Spaniards, but Torquemada, a contemporary of our author, remarks,
(Monarchia, Ind. i, p. 462,) it is a stone on which the Indians set a
high value, but not so the Spaniards. He calls it a kind of smaragdus,
"the polishing of whi