I will tell you many things about other people, who live far over the sea, and who are very great and powerful.

When they go out they sit upon great animals, which carry them easily, at a speed much exceeding that at which a man can run.

They live in lofty dwellings and, when they go to war, are covered with an armor, made of a metal so strong that arrows would not pierce it nor swords cut it.

They traverse the sea in floating castles; and when they want to convey their thought to others, many days' journey away, they make marks upon a thin white stuff they call paper, and send it by a messenger, and these marks tell him who receives it what the writer's thoughts are, just the same as if he had spoken in their ears." The hearing of such wonders as these reconciled the chief to his disappointment at not learning more about his visitor.

The knife Roger had given him was a never-ending source of wonder to the cazique, and those whom he permitted to inspect it.