TO THE SERENE

Infanta Doña Isabel Clara Eugenia of Austria.

A large ornamental woodcut initial 'A' features two figures flanking the letter.HAVING HAD THE MAJESTY of the King our Lord grant me license to offer Your Highness this small work titled Natural and Moral History of the Indies, it cannot be attributed to a lack of consideration on my part, wanting to occupy the time that Your Highness spends so holily on matters of importance, by diverting it to subjects that, for touching upon Philosophy Natural Science, are somewhat obscure, and for being about Barbarous peoples do not seem appropriate. But because the knowledge and speculation of natural things, especially if they are notable and rare, causes natural pleasure and delight in delicate minds, and the news of strange customs and deeds also pleases with its novelty, I hold for myself that for Your Highness it may serve as an honest and useful entertainment, to give you the occasion to consider works that the Most High has fashioned in the machinery of this world, especially in those parts we call the Indies, which, for being new lands, provide more to consider, and for being of new subjects, which the supreme God gave to the Crown of Spain, their knowledge is not entirely foreign or strange. My desire is that Your Highness may pass some moments of time with this reading, which