Note 118 — Chapter VI · THE VOYAGE. 1519.

This was a common form of Maya hair-dress. Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 19, and some others describe him as shorn like a slave; but this man appears to have risen from that condition. He gives him an extra pair of sandals, hanging at the waist, a dilapidated mantle or cloth—called a net by Herrera—wherein is tied a thumbed prayer-book, and upon the shoulder he places an oar. This oar is brought into camp by almost every writer, regardless of the fact that it did not belong to him and could no longer be of use. Gomara, Hist. Mex., 20, gives him bow and arrows. Las Casas, Hist. Ind., iv. 461, remarks that in the prayer-book was kept an account of time, which marked this day as a Wednesday, while it really was Sunday.