This land of the Collao is very extensive (as I have said in former chapters), and, besides the inhabited parts, there are many deserts, snowy mountains, and grassy plains which yield sustenance to the wild flocks which wander in all directions. In the centre of the province there is the largest and broadest lake that has been found in the Indies, near which are most of the villages of the Collao. The people raise their crops on large islands in the lake, where they also keep their valuables, as being safer than in the villages along the roads. I remember that I have already said that it is so cold in this province, that not only are there no fruit trees, but they cannot raise maize. In the beds of reeds in this lake there are many kinds of birds, such as large ducks, and they kill two or three kinds of fish in the lake, which are very good, though they are held to be unwholesome.

This lake is so large that it has a circumference of eighty leagues, and so deep that the captain Juan Ladrillero told me that in some parts, when he was sailing with his brigantines, he found the depth to be seventy or eighty brazas, in some places more, in others less.