d gold. The owner of one single hatchet feels
himself richer than Crassus.[1] These natives believe that hatchets
may serve a thousand purposes of daily life, while gold is only sought
to satisfy vain desires, without which one would be better off.
Neither do they know our refinements of taste, which demand that
sideboards shall be loaded with a variety of gold and silver vases.
These natives have neither tables, tablecloths, or napkins; the
caciques may sometimes decorate their tables with little golden vases,
but their subjects use the right hand to eat a piece of maize bread
and the left to eat a piece of grilled fish or fruit, and thus satisfy
their hunger. Very rarely they eat sugar-cane. If they have to wipe
their hands after eating a certain dish, they use, instead of napkins,
the soles of their feet, or their hips, or sometimes their testicles.
The same fashion prevails in Hispaniola. It is true that they often
dive into the rivers, and thus wash the whole of their bodies.

[Note 1: Possibly a mis-copy of Croesus.]

Loaded with gold, but suffering intensely and so hungry they were
scarcely able to travel, the Spaniards continued their march and
reached the territory of a chief called Pochorroso, where during
thirty days they stuffed themselves with maize bread, which is similar
to Milanese bread. Pochorroso had fled, but, attracted by coaxing and
presents, he returned, and gifts were exchanged. Vasco gave Pochorroso
the usual acceptable articles, and the cacique gave Vasco fifteen
pounds of melted gold and some slaves. When they were about to depart,
it transpired that it would be necessary to cross the territory of
a chief called Tumanama, the same formerly described by the son of
Comogre as the most powerful and formidable of those chiefs. Most of
Comogre's servants had been this man's slaves captured in war. As is
the case everywhere, these people gauged the power of Tumanama by
their own standard, ignorant of the fact that these caciques, if
brought face to face with our soldiers commanded by a brave and
fortunate leader, were no more to be feared than gnats attacking
an elephant. When the Spaniards came to know Tumanama they quickly
discovered that he did not rule on both sides of the mountain, nor was
he as rich in gold as the young Comogre pretended. Nevertheless they
took the trouble to conquer him. Pochorroso, being the enemy of
Tumanama, readily offered Vasco his advice.

Leaving his sick in charge