第481页 / 共2651页

They seemed to value them as we would do any little pebbles of

somewhat more than ordinary beauty, and to consider them as just

worth the picking up, but not worth the refusing to any body who

asked them, They gave them to their new guests at the first

request, without seeming to think that they had made them any

very valuable present. They were astonished to observe the rage

of the Spaniards to obtain them; and had no notion that there

could anywhere be a country in which many people had the disposal

of so great a superfluity of food; so scanty always among

themselves, that, for a very small quantity of those glittering

baubles, they would willingly give as much as might maintain a

whole family for many years. Could they have been made to

understand this, the passion of the Spaniards would not have

surprised them.