Histoire Naturelle des Indes
97 of 122
Accession number: MA 3900
Credit: The Morgan Library & Museum. Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983.
Title: Histoire Naturelle des Indes [supplied on an 18th century title page]
Contents: 199 images of West Indian plants, animals and human life, with accompanying manuscript captions written in late sixteenth-century French.
Medium: Most of the illustrations consist of a black chalk underdrawing and a combination of pen and brown ink with watercolor; on some images selected areas have also been glazed with a gum.
Dimensions: Binding: 30 x 21 cm; individual leaves: 29.3 x 19.7 cm.
Binding: Bound or rebound in brown leather in the late 18th century.
Pagination: Penciled folio numbers (1–125) in lower right corner of each page were added by The Morgan Library & Museum. Folios 92v–93, 93v–94, and 95v–96 are fold-out leaves.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Continued from fol. 98
by reason of the height of the mountains. They usually end their days there because while digging in the rocks masses of stone fall on them which pin them underneath and they die miserably. There also is found a great quantity of beautiful rock crystal in large pieces richly adulterated with gold. These mountains are located in a province called Lerayne [Colombia] close to a city called Santa Fe, the capital of the province. This is a region rich in wheat, meat, fowl, and plenty of gold. The Indians of this region are good workers with great skill and intelligence, working and making beautiful cloth of fine wool with which the Spaniards dress and fit themselves out, having it dyed in various colors.
Come Les Yndiens Cherchent Lor Procedant Des Montaignes Lors Quil Y Ajnondation De'Aues Venans Du Ciel (How the Indians Try to Find Gold Coming from the Mountains When There are Floods from the Sky)
The mountain of this region are very high, estimated by the navigators to be close to four or five leagues high up to their peaks, so that the slaves, negroes as well as Indians, are unable to climb them on account of their steepness and cold temperature.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1586
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983; MA 3900 (fol. 98v-99)
