WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 159 



they teach Arts and Theology ; the church is one of the largest and 

 best designed and carried out, to be seen in Mexico ; it is all one 

 cluster of gold, with famous cloisters and dormitories and a great 

 refectory. This splendid convent receives every year from its in- 

 come and church contributions, not counting other alms, over 100,000 

 pesos. The College of San Pablo of the same Augustinian Order 

 has about 100 friars ; there they teach Arts and Theology with great 

 diligence and exactitude, and education flourishes; from this distin- 

 guished order have risen such remarkable men as Master Fray Juan 

 Zapata, Bishop of Guatemala, Master Fray Gabriel de Ribera, a son 

 of that splendid convent, and many others whom I do not mention 

 because their virtue and learning are well known in that kingdom and 

 they have accomplished much there. The convent of San Sebastian 

 will have some 12 friars busied with pastoral visits and catechizing 

 the Indians, and in administering the Holy Sacraments; these be- 

 longed to the friars of the Barefoot Carmelite Order. The Augus- 

 tinians have another convent with some 8 friars, called Santa Cruz. 



444. Of the Carmelite Order there were two very strict convents 

 of Barefoot Friars. That of San Sebastian has over 80 friars, who 

 keep with perfect strictness the original rule of our glorious Father 

 St. Albert. Here there have been, and are, many acknowledged 

 saints, and for their noble example and virtue they are reverenced 

 and respected by the whole city. They have an excellent church with 

 cloisters and very strict dormitories, and a garden for their recrea- 

 tion. There was another college, very strict, of our glorious martyr 

 and prophet San Angel ; this was ordered to be abandoned by an 

 inspector who came from Spain, quite unreasonably, for he deprived 

 many in the city of its consolation ; however, in its place another very 

 strict establishment was built in Coyoacan, near the city. 



445. Besides these there is another 3 leagues from the city, which 

 they call El Desierto (The Wilderness) ; it is one of the first in the 

 world in size, strictness, and sanctity. In addition to the convent, 

 which Melchior de Cuellar erected at his own expense, it has a church 

 and dormitories which are of very remarkable construction ; they are 

 built in a spot which seems like Paradise, for Heaven so disposed 

 that place. It has pilgrimage shrines at intervals about a quarter 

 league apart, where the friars live like the hermits of the early church ; 

 it is another Mount Carmel and Holy Land in that Land of Promise 

 in the New World, and in the opinion of all the judicious who have 

 seen it, considering its location, its hilly site, its springs, the arrange- 

 ment of the convent and the hermitages, it ranks among the first in 

 the world. 



