250 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I02 



here from Peru with silver and merchandise to load in exchange 

 the native products, which are numerous and important, as has 

 already been remarked. The town will count about lOO Spanish 

 residents, plus the Negroes and mulattoes, free and slaves, who live 

 there and are in the service of the Spaniards ; there are some Indians. 

 It has a parish church with a curate to administer the Holy Sacra- 

 ments, and three small convents of recent foundation — Franciscan, 

 Mercedarian, and Jesuit — and a hospital where they care for the 

 indigent sick, and other shrines. The town and all that country have 

 a climate that is invariably hot ; there are many groves and woods. 

 An inlet comes in from the sea right up to the very houses of the 

 town, navigable for small ships and frigates up to the houses at 

 high tide. 



719. In this town and in the Indian villages of its neighborhood 

 many kinds of excellent and delicious native fruit are to be found, 

 such as aguacates of many sorts, sapotes and sapodillas, pineapples, 

 jocotes (which are their plums), many varieties of guavas, and 

 among them the matos, which is an excellent fruit and highly prized, 

 sweet and sour oranges, limes and lemons. They raise quantities of 

 corn, kidney beans, and other cereals, greens, and vegetables of both 

 native and Spanish varieties ; all the villages of its neighborhood 

 provide it with abundance of all kinds of fruit and delicacies like 

 chicken, etc. 



720. This town and port contain famous shipyards, and thanks 

 to the abundance of excellent hardwood, ships are regularly built 

 in this town and in the Cotiguina yards, which are good also, and 

 many others in the neighborhood ; every year they launch ships built 

 here, in which they export local products to Peru. 



721. The President of Guatemala appoints a Corregidor for this 

 town, for its good government and for the administration of justice 

 in the town and in all the Indian villages of its district, which are 

 numerous and large ; such are the Province of El Viejo, 3 leagues 

 out from the town, where there are 12 villages connected or forming 

 wards ; the village of Chinandega, Chichigalpa, Posoltega, and 

 others. So this Corregimiento is not only a very agreeable post but 

 also highly profitable, both for the wide jurisdiction it has and the 

 number of ships coming to this port, as well as the quantities of 

 local products to be exported in them. 



722. The harbor is good and safe, but it is hot and for that reason 

 infested with shipworms, which do much damage to the ships. These 

 are little worms like waterworms which bore into the ship's timbers ; 



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