Histoire Naturelle des Indes
103 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
La Riuiere De Chagee (The Chagres River)
This river has been recently discovered by the Spaniards. It serves their shipping and carries gold and silver from the port of Panama distant by three leagues over land from Cap La Cruz in Panama and is the beginning of said river. When the fleet of ships from Peru arrives in Panama laden with gold and minted silver, they carry the gold and silver on mules over land to the Port of La Cruz in order to ship it in barges on said river to Nombre de Dios, thus avoiding the danger from the runaway negro slaves, commonly called thieves, from the port of La Cruz to the entrance of the sea which is the end of the river,
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1586
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983; MA 3900 (fol. 105v–106)
