e seeds, mixed with slime, brought down by the high Nile from the
mountains of Ethiopia and deposited on the plain when the waters
receded, and propagated their culture.

For having thus indicated the seeds to be cultivated, the ancients
rendered her divine honours. There are numerous varieties of agoes,
distinguishable by their leaves and flowers. One of these species is
called guanagax; both inside and out, it is of a whitish colour. The
guaragua is violet inside and white outside; another species of agoes
is zazaveios, red outside and white inside. Quinetes are white inside
and red outside. The turma is purplish, the hobos yellowish and the
atibunieix has a violet skin and a white pulp. The aniguamar is
likewise violet outside and white inside and the guaccaracca is just
the reverse; white outside and violet inside. There are many other
varieties, upon which we have not yet received any report.

I am aware that in enumerating these species I shall provoke envious
people, who will laugh when my writings reach them, at my sending such
minute particulars to Your Holiness, who is charged with such weighty
interests and on whose shoulders rests the burden of the whole
Christian world. I would like to know from these envious, whether
Pliny and the other sages famous for their science sought, in
communicating similar details to the powerful men of their day, to be
useful only to the princes with whom they corresponded. They mingled
together obscure reports and positive knowledge, great things and
small, generalities and details; to the end that posterity might,
equally with the princes, learn everything together, and also in the
hope that those who crave details and are interested in novelties,
might be able to distinguish between different countries and regions,
the earth's products, national customs, and the nature of things. Let
therefore the envious laugh at the pains I have taken; for my part, I
shall laugh, not at their ignorance, envy, and laziness, but at their
deplorable cleverness, pitying their passions and recommending them to
the serpents from which envy draws its venom. If I may believe what
has been reported to me from Your Holiness by Galeazzo Butrigario and
Giovanni Ruffo, Archbishop of Cosenza, who are the nunzios of your
apostolic chair, I am certain that these details will please you. They
are the latest trappings with which I have dressed, without seeking
to decorate them, admirable things; indications