WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES — VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 49 



Franciscan convents, a hospital for the treatment of the indigent sick, 

 and a shrine of the glorious martyr Santa Lucia. This city used to 

 be very wealthy, thanks to the pearl fisheries ; hence it has Officials 

 of the Royal Exchequer; but nowadays it is poverty-stricken, for the 

 pearls have given out — a punishment which God in His mercy has 

 inflicted on the inhabitants of this country for their ingratitude and 

 lack of faith, in that most of the oyster beds have been exhausted 

 and have died out ; they have recognized and appreciated this action 

 through its effects, and the means God employed for this chastise- 

 ment (in the opinion of most people in those regions) is that the 

 mouths of the Orinoco and other rivers along that coast as far as 

 the Maranon, expel and discharge a great mass of tainted water, 

 which is carried along the coast by the current which regularly runs 

 between those islands ; its effect is like that of Greek fire or poison, 

 it washed up quantities of dead fish on those coasts, and it killed the 

 oysters from which they got the pearls, so that this great source of 

 wealth is lost. 



124. His Majesty appoints a Governor for this city and island for 

 its good administration and for the dispensing of justice, in consulta- 

 tion with the Supreme Council of the Indies. The inhabitants live in 

 the valleys, where Gov. Don Bernardo de Vargas Machuca settled 

 the Indians who were native to the island and are called Guaiqueries ; 

 he had them build churches, in which Mass is said and the Holy 

 Sacraments are administered to them, as well as to many poor 

 Spaniards, mestizos, mulattoes, and Negroes, who live in these valleys, 

 viz : Tacarigua, Pedro Gonzalez, the Margarita Valley, Paraguachi, 

 and the San Juan Valley ; these are all inhabited by Guaiqueri Indians, 

 who have the rank of gentlemen and noblemen, honor conferred upon 

 them by His Majesty for the faithfulness and loyalty with which 

 they have served him well on every occasion which has arisen. 



125. This island contains a village, de la Mar, with a few Guaiqueri 

 Indians, and its principal harbor is Pampatare, 4 leagues distant, at 

 which all ships bound there, touched ; there was an armed force there 

 which destroyed the Dutch pirate and carried off his cannon. There 

 are large herds of cattle and goats on the island, and the kids are very 

 good eating ; the whole island is overrun with rabbits. In Macanao 

 itself there is an establishment for the pearl fisheries ; while all over 

 the island deer are abundant, only those in this section have bezoar 

 stones, which rank among the best and most highly prized from all 

 the Indies ; indeed, many who appreciate their value and efficacy, and 

 that of the medicinal plants which the deer feed on and which then 

 coagulate and grow within them, esteem them more highly than the 



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