excepting in the rainy season: at that period I should expect serious consequences from either a bite or a scratch."—Oriental Sports, vol. i. p. 52.
Wild beasts were so numerous and fierce in one part of Mexico, among the Otomites, that Fr. Juan de Grijalva says in his time, in one year, more than 250 Indians were devoured by them. "There then prevailed an opinion," he proceeds, "and still it prevails among many, that those tigers and lions were certain Indian sorcerers, whom they call Nahuales, who by diabolical art transform themselves into beasts, and tear the Indians in pieces, either to revenge themselves for some offences which they have received, or to do them evil, which is the proper condition of the Devil, and an effect of his fierceness. Some traces of these diabolical acts have been seen in our time, for in the year 1579, the deaths of this kind being many, and the suspicion vehement, some Indians were put to the question, and they confessed the crime, and were executed for it. With all this experience and proof, there are many persons who doubt these transformations, and say that the land being mountainous produces wild beasts, and the beasts being once fleshed commit these great ravages. And it was through the weak understandings of the Indians that they were persuaded to believe their conjurors could thus metamorphose themselves: and if these poor wretches confessed themselves
