They  also  fight  with  each  other.  They  also  eat  each  other  even  those
who  are  slain,  and  hang  the  flesh  of  them  in  the  smoke.  They  be-
come a  hundred  and  fifty  years  old.     And  have  no  government."

This  translation,  with  two  slight  variations,  is  reprinted  word  for  word
in  the  Sotheby  catalogue,  from  the  Puttick  and  Simpson  catalogue  of  May  24,
1854,  to  be  mentioned  further  on.  At  the  Phillipps  sale  this  lot  was  bought
by  Quaritch  for   £470.
There  is  an  interesting  story  connected  with  this  leaf,  which  goes  back
to  the  time  of  its  coming  into  the  hands  of  Henry  Stevens,  in  London,  in
December  1850.  A  writer  in  the  Tx)ndon  Times  Literary  Supplement  of
October  17,  1919,  suggests  that  Stevens  obtained  it  from  the  auction  sale  of
the  Valentia  library  at  Lord  Mountnorris's  [not  "Mountmorres's"  as  printed
in  the  Tiiiies^  residence,  Arley  Castle,  on  December  6,  1852,  an  account  of
which  is  given  in  Stevens's  "Recollections  of  Mr.  James  Lenox,"  p.  167-174,
and  he  refers  to  lot  1070  of  the  catalogue,  consisting  of  a  "Collection  of
Voyages"  in  one  volume,  and  among  the  various  contents  enumerated  was
one  called  "Description  of  the  Braselians,"  and  this  lot  was  purchased  by
Pickering  for  Henry  Stevens  at  £18. 10s.  This  theory  of  its  source,  how-
ever plausible  it  may  seem,  is  disproved  by  the  following  extracts  from
Stevens's  letters  to  Mr.  Lenox,  while  the  latter  was  in  France  and  Italy,  in
1850-51,  two  years  before  the  Mountnorris  sale  took  place.
Writing  on  Nov.  30,  1850,  he  adds  in  a  postscript:  "I  am  expecting  any
day  a  block  book  about  1496  relating  to  America ! !  It  represents  the  Indians.
