and have boats hollowed from a single tree, yet very capacious, in
which they make fierce descents on neighbouring island^ inhabited
by milder people. They attack their villages, from which they
carry off the men and devour them," &c.*

Ajdother letter to Pomponius Lffitus, on the same subject, has been
cited at large in the body of this work. It is true these extracts give
nothing that has not been stated more at large in the decades of the
same author, but they are curious, as the very first announcements of
the discoveries of Columbus, and as showing the first stamp of these
extraordinary ev^ts upon the mind of one of the most learned and
liberal men of the age.
A collection of the letters of Peter Martyr was published in 1530,
imder the title of Opus Epistolarum, Petri Martyris Anglerii; it is
divided into thirty-eight books, each containing the letters of one
year. The same objections have been made to his letters as to his
decades, but they bear the same stamp of candour, probity, and
great information. They possess peculiar value from being written
at the moment, before the facts they record were distorted or dis-
coloured by prejudice or misrepresentation. His works abound in
interesting particulars not to be found in any contemporary his-
Uman. They are rich in thought, but still richer in fact, and are
full of urbanity, and of the liberal feeling of a scholar who has
mingled with the world. He is a fountain from which others draw,
and from which, with a little precaution, they may draw securely.
He died in Yalladohd, in 1526

* Opus, Epiit P. Maitsrrif Anglerii, Epiit 147.
Digitized by VjOOQIC



832 APPENDIX.
No. XXTX.
oyiBDO.
