Many have written sundry bookes and discourses of the New World at the West Indies, wherein they describe new and strange things discovered in those partes, with the actes and adventures of the Spaniards, which have conquered and peopled those Countries. But hitherto I have not seene any other Author which treates of the causes and reasons of these novelties and wonders of nature, or that hath made any search thereof. Neither have I read any booke which maketh mention of the histories of the antient Indians and naturall inhabitants of the New World. In truth, these two things are difficult. The first being the works of Nature, contrarie to the antient and received Philosophy, as to shew that the region which they call the burning Zone is very moist, and in many places very temperate, and that it raines there, whenas the Sunne is neerest, with such like things. For such as have written of the West Indies have not made profession of so deepe Philosophie; yea, the greatest part of those Writers have had no knowledge thereof. The second thing it treats of is, of the proper historie of the Indians, the which required much conference and travaile among the Indians themselves: the which most of them that have treated of the Indies could not doe, either not vnderstanding the language or not curious in the search of their Antiquities; so as they have beene contented to handle those things which have beene most common and superficiall.