ed among his
people; but he saw the letters were not the same. He said that in his
country the towns were walled and the citizens wore clothing and were
governed by laws. I have not learned the nature of their religion, but
it is known from examining this fugitive, and from his speech, that
they are circumcised.[4] What, Most Holy Father, do you think of this?
What augury do you, to whose domination time will submit all peoples,
draw for the future?

[Note 4: ..._recutiti tamen dispraeputiatique, ab exemplo et
sermone fugitivi confererunt_. The man may have been a Peruvian or
of the civilised plateau people of Cundinamarca. Wiener, in his
interesting work, _Perou et Bolivie_, studies the Peruvian system of
writing.]

Let us add to these immense considerations some matters of less
importance. I think that I should not omit mentioning the voyage of
Juan Solis,[5] who sailed from the ocean port of Lepe, near Cadiz,
with three ships, the fourth day of the ides of September, 1515, to
explore the southern coasts of what was supposed to be a continent.
Nor do I wish to omit mention of Juan Ponce,[6] commissioned to
conquer the Caribs, anthropophagi who feed on human flesh; or of
Juan Ayora de Badajoz, or Francisco Bezerra, and of Valleco, already
mentioned by me. Solis was not successful in his mission. He set out
to double the cape or promontory of San Augustin and to follow the
coast of the supposed continent as far as the equator. We have already
indicated that this cape lies in the seventh degree of the antarctic
pole. Solis continued six hundred leagues farther on, and observed
that the cape San Augustin extended so far beyond the equator to the
south that it reached beyond the thirtieth degree of the Southern
Hemisphere. He therefore sailed for a long distance beyond the Boca de
la Sierpe and Spanish Paria, which face the north and the pole star.
In these parts are found some of those abominable anthropophagi,
Caribs, whom I have mentioned before. With fox-like astuteness these
Caribs feigned amicable signs, but meanwhile prepared their stomachs
for a succulent repast; and from their first glimpse of the strangers
their mouths watered like tavern trenchermen. The unfortunate Solis
landed with as many of his companions as he could crowd into the
largest of the barques, and was treacherously set upon by a multitude
of natives who killed him and his men with clubs in the presence of
the remainder of his crew.[7] Not a so