134 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 102 



377. And although the Royal Council of the Indies, with the holy 

 zeal which animates it for the service of God our Lord, of His 

 Majesty, and of the Indians' welfare, has tried to remedy this evil 

 with warrants and ordinances, which it constantly has sent and keeps 

 sending, for the proper administration and the amelioration of this 

 great hardship and enslavement of the Indians, and the Viceroy of 

 New Spain appoints mill inspectors to visit them and remedy such 

 matters, nevertheless, since most of those who set out on such com- 

 missions, aim rather at their own enrichment, however much it may 

 weigh upon their consciences, than at the relief of the Indians, and 

 since the mill owners pay them well, they leave the wretched Indians 

 in the same slavery ; and even if some of them are fired with holy 

 zeal to remedy such abuses when they visit the mills, the mill owners 

 keep places provided in the mills in which they hide the wretched 

 Indians against their will, so that they do not see or find them, and 

 the poor fellows cannot complain about their wrongs. This is the 

 usual state of afl:airs in all the mills of this city and jurisdiction, and 

 that of Mexico City ; the mill owners and those who have the mills 

 under their supervision, do this without scruple, as if it were not a 

 most serious mortal sin. 



378. This city of Los Angeles (Puebla) is richly provided with 

 cheap and excellent supplies and is a busy trading center. In its dis- 

 trict they raise two abundant harvests of wheat each year, one in the 

 rainy season and one under irrigation ; they grow quantities of corn, 

 from which they make the Indians' ordinary bread ; everybody eats 

 it in that country because it is very nutritive and delicious ; in fact, 

 they desert good wheat bread for corn bread. Their way of pre- 

 paring it is to parch the corn with ashes, which softens it and takes 

 off the outer skin ; they wash it at once in clear pure water, and if 

 for fine quality of bread, they remove the pointed tip; then they put 

 it at once in their metates — the stone mills they have for grinding it, 

 the same as they use for making chocolate — and grind it up very fine 

 and form it into tortillas (thin cakes) ; nearby they have a fire, and 

 on it their comales or callanas, which are like unglazed earthenware 

 saucepans ; these take the place of ovens for the baking ; and they 

 serve them hot at table, which makes a very healthful food, rich in 

 nourishment and delicious. 



379. This country produces abundantly all the Spanish cereals 

 and many native ones, with plentiful supplies of their delicious fruit, 

 and ours also. There are in this district large ranches which raise 

 abundance of cattle and sheep; the fields are full of them, utilized 

 both for food and for profit from the wool for the mills ; they raise 



