226 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I02 



white ; all the beans or seeds are attached to a core with surrounding 

 pulp in which the seeds are preserved ; this pulp is bittersweet and 

 very soft. Each ear contains from 25 to 30 beans ; they get them 

 out by sucking out the pulp, or digging them out if there are very 

 many ; then they lay them in the sun for them to get wrinkled and 

 dried. This is the way they handle the cacao. 



Chapter XIII 



Of the Town of Sonsonate and the Villages of Its District, and 

 Other Remarkable Things To Be Found There. 



644. The town of Santissima Trinidad was established in the 

 Province of Sonsonate on account of the wealth of cacao to be found 

 in that province, in the year 1578 and in an attractive and suitable 

 location ; although it has a hot climate, it enjoys bright skies and 

 healthful breezes ; a small stream of excellent water runs close by. 

 The town contains 200 Spanish residents, besides many Indians 

 living in its outer wards, and free Negroes and mulattoes, whom 

 they call navorios. It has an excellent parish church which is not 

 yet finished, a Dominican convent with a Vicar, and Franciscan and 

 Mercedarian convents, a hospital, the church of the True Cross, that 

 of Our Lady of the Pillar and other churches and shrines. There 

 are some small Indian villages round about the town, which is all 

 paved. There are many mercantile establishments. His Majesty 

 appoints an Alcalde Mayor here, in consultation with his Royal 

 Council of the Indies, and likewise a Treasurer, whose jurisdiction 

 covers also its port of Acaxutla which is 5 leagues distant ; some 

 ships come here from Peru with cargoes of wine, and load local 

 products. 



645. The town being in the hot country has much wooded and 

 forest land ; there are some sugar mills here and they raise quantities 

 of rice, balsam, mechoacan, indigo, corn, kidney beans, and other 

 cereals, many kinds of native and Spanish fruit, medicinal extracts, 

 fruits and roots, and annatto ; there are large cattle ranches. The 

 district contains many Indian villages, as : Naulingo, Caluco, Los 

 Izalcos, and others in the hot country and Apaneca and Ataco in 

 the cold country, where they grow much wheat, quinces, large peaches, 

 and other Spanish varieties of fruit. Deer in this country have 

 excellent bezoar stones. A league beyond these villages, at the foot 

 of the sierra toward Guatemala, and in a plain, lies the village of 

 Ahuachapan ; all the Indian women in this village are expert in the 

 manufacture of fine pottery — pitchers, jars, jugs, and other products — 



