great number of crocodiles, which are very bloodthirsty and cruel. They
quite commonly pull from their bancas the natives who go in those
boats, and cause many injuries among the horned cattle and the horses
of the stock-farms, when they go to drink. And although the people fish
for them often and kill them, they are never diminished in number. For
that reason, the natives set closely-grated divisions and enclosures
in the rivers and creeks of their settlements, where they bathe. There
they enter the water to bathe, secure from those monsters, which they
fear so greatly that they venerate and adore them, as if they were
beings superior to themselves. All their oaths and execrations, and
those which are of any weight with them (even among the Christians)
are, thus expressed: "So may the crocodile kill him!" They call the
crocodile _buhaya_ in their language. It has happened when some one
has sworn falsely, or when he has broken his word, that then some
accident has occurred to him with the crocodile, which God, whom he
offends, has so permitted for the sake of the authority and purity
of the truth, and the promise of it. [88]

The fisheries of sea and rivers are most abundant, and include all
kinds of fish; both of fresh and salt water. These are generally used
as food throughout the entire country. There are many good sardines,
sea-eels, sea-breams (which they call _bacocos_), daces, skates,
_bicudas_, _tanguingues_, soles, _plantanos_, [89] _taraquitos_,
needle-fish, gilt-heads, and eels; large oysters, mussels, [90]
_porçebes_, crawfish, shrimp, sea-spiders, center-fish, and all kinds
of cockles, shad, white fish, and in the Tajo River of Cagayan, [91]
during their season, a great number of _bobos_, which come down to
spawn at the bar. In the lake of Bonbon, a quantity of tunny-fish,
not so large as those of España, but of the same shape, flesh, and
taste, are caught. Many sea-fish are found in the sea, such as whales,